DR Congo opens corruption probe into billionaire Rawji family, owners of Rawbank

Prosecutors in the Democratic Republic of Congo have opened a criminal inquiry that touches the Rawji family, the billionaire owners of Rawbank, the country's largest lender, in a case that has already forced an official clarification and rattled a banking group at the center of the nation's finances.

The prosecutor general at the Court of Cassation, Firmin Mvonde, notified the migration directorate on June 20 of a travel ban on eight people. They include Mustafa Rawji, Rawbank's chief executive, three of his relatives, Mazhar, Uzair and Zain Rawji, and Jules Alingete, the former head of the state financial inspectorate. The order was tied to a judicial investigation into presumed acts of corruption, forgery and money laundering.

Mvonde stepped in publicly weeks later to narrow the scope of the case. In a communiqué dated July 4, he said he had acted on a June 18 instruction from Guillaume Ngefa, the state minister for justice, who asked for an inquiry into conduct that might amount to offences by the individuals named and by companies in the Rawji Group, including Rawbank.

The prosecutor was careful about what the inquiry does and does not mean. He said its only aim was to establish whether any criminal liability arises from the matters raised, that the travel ban was a temporary measure to keep those named available to investigators, and that it did not amount to a finding of guilt. He added that the case remains at an early stage, that no evidence has established anyone's criminal responsibility, and that the presumption of innocence applies in full.

He went further still. Some of the allegations, Mvonde said, had already been examined in earlier judicial proceedings that ended in dismissals. The prosecutor also disclosed that the travel ban on those named had since been lifted.

The substance of the accusations traces back several years. According to Congolese reporting, the claims center on commissions allegedly paid by Rawji Group companies, surfacing between 2023 and 2024 in connection with a tax dispute involving Rawbank. Those earlier allegations had drawn complaints and media coverage before this year's inquiry.

The case is unusual for the profiles it draws in. Mustafa Rawji runs the DRC's dominant commercial bank. Alingete, for years the public face of the country's anti-corruption drive as inspector-general of finance until he left the post in 2025, is now himself among those under investigation.

The episode has taken a contested turn that remains unproven. Several Congolese outlets have alleged that the justice minister was misled into ordering the inquiry by a Cameroonian con man posing as a UN official, who claimed Rawbank and Alingete were facing US sanctions. Those reports, carried by local news sites, have not been independently verified. Ngefa's office issued a formal right of reply rejecting the articles, saying they presented as fact a series of claims resting on nothing officially established, and dismissing any attempt to link the case to the country's international financial operations.

Neither Rawbank nor the individuals named responded publicly when the travel ban was first reported. The bank has not been accused of any proven wrongdoing, and no charges have been laid.

The stakes are large because of what Rawbank is. Founded in 2002 by the Rawji family, whose commercial presence in the country dates back more than a century, it is the DRC's biggest bank, with more than $6.6 billion in total assets, a record net banking income of about $682 million, and over 500,000 clients. The family controls it through RawHolding, and the wider Rawji Group spans banking, manufacturing, trade, logistics and consumer goods.

Its reach extends into the state's own finances. Rawbank acted as a national anchor when Kinshasa raised its first-ever Eurobond in April, a landmark issue that opened international capital markets to the country and was widely praised as a diplomatic and economic win. That role is why a case touching the bank's owners carries risks beyond the courtroom, with local commentators warning that even an inquiry that leads nowhere could unsettle confidence in the country's financial signature.

There was a brief scare on the ground. Over one weekend, a Rawbank cash machine on a commercial strip in Kinshasa's Limete district stopped dispensing dollars, feeding rumors of trouble at the bank before normal service resumed. The bank did not link the outage to the case.

The Rawji family's finances have drawn scrutiny before. The Panama Papers leak documented the family's use of offshore structures across several tax havens, holdings that are not illegal and do not imply wrongdoing, but that critics have said make the group's affairs hard to trace.

What happens next rests with the prosecutor. The inquiry is open but, by Mvonde's own account, without established offences, and the travel restrictions that first drew attention have been withdrawn. Whether the case produces charges or fades like the earlier complaints it partly revisits will determine if this was a genuine reckoning for one of central Africa's most powerful business families or a costly false alarm for a country that has just won the trust of global investors.