Tag: africa

Two U.S. Pilots ILLEGALLY ARRESTED in West Africa During Routine Fuel Stop Beg President Trump for Immediate Help

Two innocent American citizens have been rotting in a brutal, third-world West African prison for nearly two months after being ambushed by a heavily armed military squad during a routine fuel stop.

Now, facing horrific conditions with no end in sight, they are begging President Donald Trump to step in and save them.

Veteran pilot Brad Schlenker, 63, of Illinois, and fellow American pilot Fabio Espinal Nunez, 33, of New Jersey, were operating a Gulfstream IV charter flight transporting a Brazilian family from Suriname to Dubai when they made a scheduled refueling stop in Conakry, Guinea in late December 2025.

They did everything by the book. They communicated with air traffic control.

They requested—and received—clearance to land at Ahmed Sékou Touré International Airport in the Republic of Guinea for a simple refueling stop.

Instead of a fuel truck, they were met by a terrifying military ambush.

As soon as the plane touched the tarmac, nearly 100 heavily armed Guinean military personnel swarmed the aircraft. They pointed AK-47s at the terrified American pilots, screaming at them in French, and dragged them off the runway.

The two American pilots were immediately detained.

Guinean authorities later accused the pilots of:

  • Violating national sovereignty
  • Entering airspace illegally
  • Making an unauthorized landing
  • Endangering national defense

Aerotime reported:

A family source familiar with the trip told AeroTime that the crew believed required permits for the fuel stop had been arranged by a local handler, raising questions about whether the detention stems from a paperwork failure or something more deliberate. The same source alleged that, after initially being held at a police station for roughly 10 days, the pilots were moved into Conakry’s prison system and threatened with a sentence of up to 20 years.

Conditions inside the prison have become a central point of concern for relatives. Stevenson told People.com that the facility is severely overcrowded and detainees rely on outside support for food. She described dirt floors, limited sanitation, and prisoners taking turns sleeping. A US State Department spokesperson said that the department is aware of the detention and that consular officers have visited the pilots multiple times since late December 2025.

The pilots’ families are now publicly urging the Trump administration to intervene. In an interview with CBS News, Schlenker directly appealed to President Trump for help.

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Epstein Flipped Israel’s Gaza-Tested Biometric Scanners Into Nigeria Ports Deal for UAE

The year before Jeffrey Epstein’s suspicious death in a Manhattan jail, the financier was working to broker an infrastructure deal for Emirati logistics conglomerate DP World in Nigeria, according to a massive trove of emails released by the Justice Department last month.

In an email exchange from the summer of 2018, Epstein facilitated talks between then-chair of Nigeria’s sovereign investment fund, Jide Zeitlin, and DP World’s ex-chairman, Sultan Ahmad bin Sulayem, on possible shipping terminals in Lagos and Badagry. Sulayem resigned from DP World on February 13, 2026 amid fallout from the revelation of his intimate friendship with Epstein.

DP World’s leadership was reluctant to invest in an industrial zone in Nigeria unless they could own the surrounding port outright, and talks with previous Nigerian presidents, since 2005, had led nowhere. Zeitlin informed Sulayem that he was close to then-President Muhammadu Buhari and billionaire shipping magnate Gabriele Volpi—the owner of Intels, Nigeria’s largest logistics company, which services the country’s massive oil & gas sector. Epstein, in turn, offered to involve Kathryn Ruemmler, former White House counsel under President Barack Obama. Ruemmler recently announced her resignation as chief legal officer of Goldman Sachs.

Sulayem and Epstein worked together for more than a decade, cultivating a friendship between Israel and the United Arab Emirates long before the Abraham Accords agreement in 2020. Zeitlin wrote to Epstein in September 2018, after Djibouti nationalized DP World’s main hub in East Africa, “I hope your pal’s sojourn in Tel Aviv … was more effective than his efforts on the African continent.” After Epstein’s death, DP World acquired a controlling stake in a Nigerian logistics provider in 2022 and began expanding its footprint in Lagos as of last year.

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Investigation into Democrat Ilhan Omar’s Husband May Reach to Somalia, Kenya, and the United Arab Emirates

House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) wants officials to look abroad regarding Rep. Ilhan Omar’s (D-MN) husband, Tim Mynett, and his failed business ventures.

Comer wants the House Ethics Committee investigation to look at countries such as Somalia, Kenya, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the New York Post reported Saturday.

The news comes after Omar’s net worth increased from $51,000 to $30 million in one year with the surge of wealth linked to two of Mynett’s businesses. However, Omar has said people were falsely claiming she was worth millions and pointed the finger at conservatives who she said were unfairly targeting her, per Breitbart News.

According to the Post, “Mynett’s investment firm Rose Lake Capital wanted to build solar panels in Africa and his main business partner received a $10,699 air ticket to Dubai after talks about a deal there.”

The outlet continued:

Comer’s committee initially spearheaded the probe and in a Feb. 5 letter to Mynett, demanded he turn over “all documents and communications” by anyone affiliated with either Rose Lake Capital LLC or his failed California winery eStCru LLC related to travel “to the United Arab Emirates, Somalia or Kenya, or travel undertaken to solicit business connected to those countries. This includes the dates of travel, the individuals who traveled, and the stated purpose of each trip.”

The deadline for Mynett to respond is Thursday.

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Not Just the Somalis: Nigerian Honored by Gretchen Whitmer Exposed as Massive Day Care Fraudster – Stole While Trashing America’s ‘Structural Racism’

Michigan might have its own fraud scandal brewing.

After widespread fraud was uncovered in Minnesota’s day care and other government-funded social service programs, most of them run by people linked to the immigrant Somali community, the public’s crosshairs turned to state officials, particularly Democratic Gov. Tim Walz. Surely these people were not stealing billions from hardworking Americans without having help from public officials?

Similar questions may soon be asked in Michigan of its own programs and its Democratic governor, Gretchen Whitmer.

A former professor, Nigerian immigrant Nkechy Ezeh, pleaded guilty last month to wire fraud and tax evasion in a scheme that defrauded Michigan taxpayers out of over $1 million, according to news site MLive.

The misappropriated money had been intended for Early Learning Neighborhood Collaborative, an early childhood education program for disadvantaged children. Ezeh was the founder and CEO of ELNC.

“The nonprofit closed in 2023 after Ezeh and former Director of Finance and Administration Sharon Killebrew were accused of embezzling more than $2.5 million combined over several years,” WZZM-TV reported.

Killebrew, 70, was sentenced to four years and six months in prison after pleading guilty to tax evasion and conspiracy to defraud a federally funded program, according to MLive.

Ezeh faces 20 years for wire fraud. The charge of tax evasion could carry an additional five years in prison.

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Fears British woman, 71, who vanished while hiking in South Africa was killed for her body parts to be used in witchcraft

A British woman who vanished while hiking in South Africa may have been killed for her body parts to be used in witchcraft rituals, it is feared. 

Lorna McSorley, 71, went missing in September after she and her partner of 30 years, 81-year-old Leon, left their hotel to go for a short walk from the Ghost Mountain Inn in the KwaZulu-Natal province to search for local wildlife.

On the walk, Leon found the heat and distance too difficult and left his partner carry on on her own. 

He raised the alarm when she failed to return three hours later, with search parties scouring the nearby lake and banks for any sign of her.  

To this day, Lorna has still not been heard from. Locals in the region believe she may have been kidnapped and killed for use in ‘muti’ rituals. 

‘Muti’ is a type of traditional medicine or magic. Though most ‘muti’ rituals require parts from plants or animals, there are those who believe the most powerful charms and medicines require human body parts. 

These spells are often used by those with the wealth and contacts to procure human body part, be they businessmen closing a deal, a gangster wishing to protect themselves or a politician seeking high office.  

And KwaZulu-Natal, particularly the region’s north where Lorna went missing, is known for being a hotspot for strong ‘muti’ beliefs that locals told the Times put them above the law. 

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US Expands Military Base in Kenya as It Escalates Air War in Somalia

The US has begun a $70 million military construction project to expand a runway at the Manda Bay airbase in Kenya near the Somali border as it continues to significantly escalate its air war in Somalia.

US and Kenyan officials held a groundbreaking ceremony on Thursday to launch the construction project, which is being funded by the US State Department. The ceremony was attended by Gen. Dagvin Anderson, the commander of US Africa Command, and US Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau.

The base at Manda Bay is seen as a key hub for US military operations in Somalia, where the US launched at least 25 airstrikes in the month of January alone, an unprecedented rate of US attacks. US strikes have targeted an ISIS affiliate in northeastern Somalia’s Puntland region and al-Shabaab in southern Somalia.

Back in 2020, the Manda Bay airbase in Kenya came under attack by al-Shabaab. The militant group targeted Camp Simba, a part of the base used by US forces, and killed one US soldier and two American contractors.

The US and its allies have been fighting against al-Shabaab since the group first emerged following a US-backed Ethiopian invasion of Somalia in 2006, which ousted the Islamic Courts Union, a Muslim coalition that briefly held power in Mogadishu.

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WHAT A COINCIDENCE: While Serving in Congress, Keith Ellison Sponsored Legislation That Made it Easier to Transfer Funds to Somalia

Before becoming the attorney general of Minnesota, Keith Ellison served in the House of Representatives, for the state’s 5th District, which includes the city of Minneapolis.

During his time in congress, Ellison only sponsored one bill, the Money Remittances Improvement Act of 2014. This bill made it easier to transfer funds to places overseas, like Somalia. Isn’t that fascinating?

You could not make this up.

Couple this with the fact that Ellison was caught on tape basically promising favors to fraudsters, and things are not looking good for him.

Hot Air has more on this:

It turns out that this bill was the Money Remittances Improvement Act, which created the conditions through which those hundreds of millions or likely billions of dollars were fraudulently acquired and sent off to fund the Somali civil war and to enrich members of Somali clans associated with those who settled here in Minnesota.

Any financial bill is complicated, but the most relevant portion of the bill in this case is to transfer the authority to monitor money transfers to foreign countries to the states, which are in turn supposed to ensure that federal regulations are strictly adhered to…

It’s almost as if the system were intentionally designed not to aid in the small remittances of people working in menial jobs as refugees to send money to their families back home, but rather to enable the shipment of hundreds of millions or billions of ill-gotten gains abroad.

Naah. Couldn’t be.

Such corruption is impossible in America, right? A no man with the patriotism and integrity that would vault him to the exalted heights of Congressman, Deputy Chair of the Democratic National Committee, and then Attorney General would ever participate in a scheme to defraud the state and federal governments, right?

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2.6 million-year-old jaw from extinct ‘Nutcracker Man’ is found where we didn’t expect it

Fragments of a 2.6 million-year-old fossil jaw discovered in northeastern Ethiopia are transforming the picture of early human evolution in Africa. The jaw, from a bipedal hominin — an extinct relative of humans — shows that its kind journeyed far north, to a region where other hominins were already living.

The ancient jaw belongs to the genus Paranthropus and was found more than 620 miles (1,000 kilometers) farther north than any other fossil of its kind.

“Until now, not a single fossil of Paranthropus had been identified” in the Afar region of Ethiopia, researchers wrote in a study published Wednesday (Jan. 21) in the journal Nature. “Hundreds of fossils representing over a dozen species” of hominins had been found in the Afar, study lead author Zeresenay Alemseged, a paleoanthropologist at the University of Chicago, said in a statement, “so the apparent absence of Paranthropus was conspicuous and puzzling to paleoanthropologists, many of whom had concluded the genus simply never ventured that far north.”

The genus Paranthropus contains three species distantly related to humans: P. robustus, P. boisei and P. aethiopicus, collectively known as the “robusts.” These species walked upright beginning around 2.7 million years ago, but they are unique in having massive teeth and jaws, which earned one fossil skull the nickname “Nutcracker Man.” Paranthropus fossils were previously found in locations from southern Ethiopia to southern Africa and have been dated to between 2.8 million and 1.4 million years ago.

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Nigerian professor pleads guilty to stealing $1.4 million from Grand Rapids preschool nonprofit

A highly acclaimed Nigerian professor at Aquinas College is facing two decades in prison after she admitted to swindling more than $1 million from taxpayers and poor minority children in West Michigan.

Nkechy Ezeh, founder and CEO of the Early Learning Neighborhood Collaborative, pleaded guilty last week to wire fraud and tax evasion in a scheme that forced the nonprofit to shut down after a dozen years preparing about 8,000 preschoolers for kindergarten in Kent County, Battle Creek and Kalamazoo, WOOD reports.

Ezeh worked with ELNC bookkeeper Sharon Killebrew to create nearly $500,000 in fake invoices, as well as created fake daycare businesses to siphon off hundreds of thousands of dollars more, which Ezeh used for personal travel to Hawaii, Nigeria and Liberia, according to court documents cited by the news site.

The case comes amid sprawling investigations into fraud in government funded child care programs in Minnesota, Ohio and other states.

The investigations are motivated in part by a viral YouTube video last month that featured what appeared to be a largely vacant “Quality Learing [sic] Center” in Minneapolis that collected $4 million in recent years to provide child care services to the Somali community, Fox News reports.

The learning center is part of a broader scandal involving alleged social services fraud largely tied to the Somali community in the Twin Cities that U.S. Attorney Joseph Thompson said last month could exceed $1 billion once investigations into Minnesota’s Child Care Assistance Program are complete. Officials have followed some of the funds to the Somali terror group Al-Shabab, according to Fox.

Ezeh’s attorney, Mary Chartier, told MLive her client “is committed to taking full responsibility and accountability for her actions.

“She is deeply remorseful to anyone who has been negatively impacted,” Chartier said.

ELNC President Amy DeLeeuw offered a decidedly different perspective following Ezeh’s plea hearing in U.S. District Court on Jan. 14, noting in a statement the former CEO’s “failure to meaningfully articulate the nature and scope of her criminal misconduct.”

“Her theft of million of dollars intended for the most vulnerable of children was brazen, all encompassing and unconscionable,” DeLeeuw said.

“To date, Nkechy has made no effort to repay any of the millions of dollars she stole from ELNC,” the statement read. “I trust Nkechy’s demeanor at today’s hearing did not go unnoticed by Chief Judge Hala Jarbou. I and the board will have more to say in our victim impact statement and look forward to her sentencing hearing on May 13.”

Killebrew pleaded guilty earlier this year to engaging in conspiracy to defraud a federally funded program of $1,170,935 and tax evasion, and was sentenced to four years, six months in prison.

Ezeh agreed to pay $1.4 million in restitution to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Service’s Early Head Start Programs and other organizations as part of her plea agreement, which also detailed $390,000 in back taxes, according to media reports.

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US Ends Aid to Somalia After Locals Torch and Loot Warehouse Filled with 76 Tons of US-Donated Food

Such a grateful country!
They really appreciate all of the US taxpayer donated food sent their way.

The United States ended taxpayer-funded food aid to Somalia after local officials torched and looted the stockpiles of food stored in a local warehouse.

There is even video of the mass looting!

The US State Department released a statement after the warehouse was destroyed.

This is the same country that is shipped suitcases of US dollars each week.

It appears the Somalians in Africa are not very appreciated for the US assistance.

It’s about time the US focused their foreign aid in a different direction.

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