Fortean Slips: Black Magic & White Collar Crime

Black Magic &
White Collar Crime

by D. Trull
Enigma Editor
dtrull@parascope.com

If you had magical powers, would you waste your time levitating white leopards and making large national landmarks temporarily vanish, or would you conjure up immense quantities of wealth and decadent indulgence for yourself? For most of us, it's not much of a trick question. A West African millionaire living in Florida has demonstrated what it truly means to believe in magic: he used black magic spells and curses to embezzle the enchanting sum of $240 million -- and for his next trick, he made himself disappear.

Foutanga Dit Babani "Baba" Sissoko, who was born in Mali and also possesses citizenship in Gambia, has made quite a name for himself in Miami since moving there in 1996. He quickly garnered attention as a big spender with a big heart, who delighted in buying extravagant gifts for himself, his business associates and even complete strangers. Sissoko bought each of his three attorneys a $65,000 Mercedes, and gave Jaguars to other acquaintances. He was compassionate toward the poor, donating $1.2 million to a Miami homeless shelter and frequently handing out $100 bills to panhandlers. He spontaneously gave $300,000 to a Miami high school marching band that was raising money for a trip to be in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, and he bought a Range Rover for a woman only because he heard her arguing about its price at a dealership. Sissoko once tipped a masseuse $10,000 even though he declined a massage from her, explaining that he would let no woman touch him except his four wives.

Sissoko's feats of generosity turned him into a folk hero in the Miami area, particularly among the black community. A devout Muslim, he has been described as a remarkably charismatic man who can instantly charm anyone in his presence, even though he speaks very little English. But one dark cloud has hung over his random acts of financial kindness: the question of where all his money came from. Sissoko's primary business venture in recent years has been Air Dabia, a new airline he built from the ground up. The airline has not been a big success, though, and he definitely possessed vast wealth beforehand. Accounts of how he made his millions have been varied and contradictory, even as told by Sissoko himself.

The stories have testified that Sissoko went from rags to riches as a textiles dealer in India, or as a wood trader in Gabon, or as an archaeological treasure-hunter in Mali, or by striking oil on land he owned, Clampett-style. Sissoko once claimed that he found his riches as a laborer in a diamond mine in Liberia, where the bosses magnanimously gave the workers one day a week to keep whatever they found. He boasted that he snapped up $9 million worth of diamonds in just six months, all for himself. But in fact, Liberian diamonds are seldom better than industrial quality, suggesting that Sissoko's mining story was giving us the shaft.

In the absence of any clear truth, many have suspected that Sissoko earned his fortune in that long-established moneymaking enterprise, covert illicit international crime. Circumstantial evidence has suggested that he may be an arms dealer. Whatever the case, Sissoko does have a criminal record -- in fact, it was an extradition on bribery charges that brought him to the Miami area in the first place.

In July 1996, two of Sissoko's employees bought a pair of military helicopters in Miami that they wanted to ship to Sissoko in Gambia. The choppers had been converted from military to civilian use, but their potential for misuse required the men to obtain a special export license before the aircraft could leave the U.S. The buyers angrily refused to wait, and they offered customs officials a $30,000 bribe for the immediate release of the helicopters. Sissoko was secretly recorded in a phone conversation authorizing the payoff. He was later arrested by Interpol in Geneva, just days before he was scheduled to attend a Democratic Party fundraising dinner at the White House. Tough break for Bubba's bank account.

Sissoko's prosecution in Miami turned into a media circus, with supporters arguing that he was the victim of a racist entrapment scheme. Among his high-ranking advocates were former senator Birch Bayh, Corrine Brown, Sheila Jackson Lee and Barney Frank of the House of Representatives, and TV's Sherman Helmsley. Covering all the bases, defense attorneys argued that Sissoko deserved diplomatic immunity as a "special envoy of Gambia," and claimed that the millionaire felt he was being extorted into paying the bribe or else, and also explained that in many African nations, it is customary for a rich man to "tip" government officials he deals with.

And there was another African custom Sissoko brought to his defense: a little tribal magic. He had his associates sprinkled some type of mystical powders around the federal courthouse where his hearing was to be held. He also poured the powders and a mixture of milk and salt into Brickell Key, and watched the flow patterns for some divination of how the trial would turn out. Sissoko splashed a purple-colored water behind his ears to ward off threats, and he had the names of his judge and prosecutors sent to a village in Mali, where a prayer service was held to cast evil curses upon his enemies.

The magical intervention arguably aided Sissoko's cause somewhat. In the end he took a plea bargain of "authorizing an illegal gratuity" rather than bribery, and with his detention during extradition counted as time served, he spent a sentence of 43 days in a South Florida prison camp. He also paid a pocket-change fine of $250,000.

His jail time must have been pleasant enough, because after his release he decided to stay in Florida. It was at this time that he began his campaign of handing out big cash and prizes, gaining acceptance as a valuable member of society much more proficiently that your average ex-con. His treatment by the media and the public was almost always favorable, if not adoring, but some few began to question whether they should believe in this Santa Claus.

The Miami New Times published a 1997 expose entitled "The Baba Chronicles" that revealed Sissoko's malicious business practices at Air Dabia. American pilots and flight attendants told the newspaper they had gone to work for Sissoko's airline, wooed away from their previous jobs by the promise of huge salaries. But they were never paid more than small advances, and they found themselves forced into working excessive hours on understaffed flights, on old and unsafe aircraft. Some quit Air Dabia upon landing in Africa, but Sissoko's underlings tracked them down, took back their money, had them arrested and left them stranded with no means of returning to the U.S.

"How would you feel if you heard about him spending all of this money on cars and marching bands while you haven't been paid in months?" said T.K. Sanders, a former Air Dabia pilot who said Sissoko has failed to pay him $60,000. "You'd probably be a little pissed, wouldn't you?"

Sissoko has yet to be formally charged with any wrongdoings in running Air Dabia, but another accusation has revealed one source of his hitherto unexplained wealth. Mohammed Ayyoub Mohammed Saleh, an officer at a bank in the United Arab Emirates, confessed that Sissoko had coerced him into illegally transferring large amounts of money into Sissoko's account. Saleh explained that he "fell under Sissoko's control" after the millionaire worked black magic on him.

Sissoko allegedly had a black glass ball hung from the ceiling over Saleh's bed, claiming that the magic orb let him watch the banker's actions constantly. Sissoko also told Saleh that he possessed the supernatural power to "make money come back and make it grow," and Saleh honestly believed that the $240 million he was bedazzled into embezzling would magically reappear.

But so far it hasn't. And neither has Sissoko. Saleh and two other officials from the Dubai Islamic Bank have been arrested, but Sissoko is nowhere to be found. The U.S. Justice and Treasury departments are investigating, along with Arabian and Swiss authorities. They suspect that Sissoko has fled home to Gambia. Considering how much he loves the spotlight, it's hard to imagine him staying in hiding forever.

So what are we to make of this twisted modern-day Robin Hood, who seemingly loves stealing bucketloads of money and giving it away with equal abandon? There are definitely many pieces of the Baba Sissoko puzzle still missing, but some of his former associates have offered this insight into his character: they have suggested that Sissoko has a god complex, and his lavish gift-giving, his magical spells and his deceptive business dealings are all methods of forcing others into supplicating before his almighty will.

"He likes you to come to him like a servant and say, 'Baba, I need to be paid. Please, Baba, I need money,'" an anonymous Air Dabia employee said. "He wants to humiliate you in front of people. He wants to feel like a prophet or a god."

It seems that the manipulation of other people, more than the money, is what he truly desires. In more ways than one, Sissoko has mastered the art of voodoo economics.

	Click Here for More Fortean Slips!
	Fortean Slips message board: Share your views