The Tshisekedi clan's NGOs and foundations, veritable money-laundering machines
The Tshisekedi clan has put in place a sprawling strategy to plunder the country. Beyond their role in the looting of Katanga's mineral resources, the family has built an entire system for siphoning off the little money that reaches the Congolese Treasury, thanks to a very well-organised mafia.
Since he came to power in 2019, barely a week has gone by without a financial scandal implicating the Tshisekedi clan, members of his government and other dignitaries of the Kinshasa regime.
Africa Intelligence has just made fresh revelations about the cost of President Félix Tshisekedi's many official trips and leisure travel: more than 283 billion Congolese francs in 2025, in a country where the vast majority of the population lives below the poverty line.
Another major scandal concerns the numerous charitable foundations set up by members of the Tshisekedi family. The one run by his wife, Denise Nyakeru, is reported to have received more than 1.5 billion Congolese francs (US$676,000) from state coffers in 2025, even though it claims to run on private donations.
Beyond Treasury money, the Denise Nyakeru Foundation, now renamed the LONA Foundation, is alleged to have received tens of millions of dollars from Lualaba, via Governor Fifi Masuka, and from FONAREV, an opaque body funded by mining royalties, as well as from other state entities.
The Marthe Kasalu Foundation, named after Félix Tshisekedi's mother, received a transfer recorded in June 2025 of just over 2 billion Congolese francs (US$877,000). It was launched in 2021 by Fanny Kasalu Tshisekedi, the head of state's eldest daughter. On its website, the foundation says it is funded exclusively by donations, bequests and sponsorship, and insists that it receives no subsidies.
The July 2025 transfer, which looks like a regularisation entry, refers to "making funds available for the purchase of maize production from the foundation". This is despite the fact that the president's daughter's organisation has no known activity in agriculture.
Finally, the Central Bank of Congo's (BCC) ledger of recorded transactions reveals subsidies paid to the Étienne Tshisekedi Foundation. It was created in December 2018 by the children of the former prime minister, among them the current head of state. Chaired by the president's brother, Senator Roger Tshisekedi, the foundation's stated mission is to keep alive the ideals of the late opposition leader. In 2025, it received five payments totalling 6.7 billion Congolese francs (US$2.9 million) under the heading "economic, social, cultural and scientific interventions".
“The Tshisekedi clan has put in place a sprawling strategy to plunder the country. Beyond their role in the looting of Katanga's mineral resources, the family has built an entire system for siphoning off the little money that reaches the Congolese Treasury, thanks to a very well-organised mafia.”
“It is true that the DRC is suffering aggression, but it is waged by the clan in power in Kinshasa and its political class against the Congolese people: they plunder the country, steal and fuel insecurity everywhere to keep a people already starving firmly under their thumb. Worst of all, they are now seeking to change the Constitution so that they can cling to power indefinitely.”
“The Congolese people are called upon to take their destiny into their own hands and to put an end, once and for all, to this wretched circus and the vicious circle we have known since 1960. On the Day of Judgement, God will ask us to account for ourselves: "What did you do with the riches I gave you, in your soil and beneath it?"”
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