Charles Thiemele & Damalex: the Ivory Coast Syndrome

For a long time Switzerland has been an essential place for oil trading. Several multinational heavy weights are Swiss based, i.e.Glencore, Vitol or Trafigura. In order to take advantage by all means of oil windfalls numerous smaller companies were established in the shadow of these large groups. Damalex, a Swiss-Ivory Coast firm, is a typical example of this new type of black gold diggers!

An empty shell

Damalex is a multi-activities consultancy agency, specializing in the oil and gas sectors. Established in 2007 the Nyon, Switzerland based company has a second office in Abidjan, Ivory Coast. The small firm is providing an extensive array of services: trading, mergers and acquisitions consultancy, strategy, economic intelligence. With only one captain on board to provide it all, Damalex’ CEOCharles Thiémélé.

The man is a magician, a truly ubiquitous and multi-disciplinary businessman. Not only does he provide advise on specialties as far apart as trading and market intelligence, but he also heads simultaneously and all by himself two different offices on two different continents. Aside from the above competencies, the head of Damalex is an outstanding expert in communication. On behalf of his company and as an oil and gas specialist, he attends numerous seminars and is readily available for media interviews… What energy! Well, a closer look reveals that the hyper-activity of Damalex’ CEO seems mostly media-centred. As a matter of fact, Damalex’ website has not been updated since 2011! And its CEO’s diary is mostly empty; where are the clients? This remains a complete mystery.

One is led to believe that Damalex is an empty shell. What then is its purpose? This is another mystery. Who is in fact Charles Thiémélé? According to the Come 4 news web site, he is the son of a wealthy politician from Ivory Coast. Thus is the company a spoiled child’s toy. No so sure…

Adidjan, the world capital of fraud

Ivory Coast is known worldwide for cocoa and … scam artists! Indeed Abidjan is the world capital of the so-called Nigerian scam. In so many different ways: you are told by email, telephone or post that you just won a lottery; you have to pass on your bank account numbers. On an online dating site, a young and beautiful lady is asking you to give her a help financially. The young lady is actually a tough young guy with a boxer’s frame!

These Young men have become masters in the art and manner of extorting money. The francophone community in the EU is their target of choice, the French, the Belgians, the Swiss. Easy prey, big pay off. But what link is there to Damalex? None? In the energy sector secrecy is a key part of negotiation. If on one hand lack of transparency is a key success factor inthe energy sector, on the other hand it is a real plague for earnest businessmen, especially for transactions with countries such as Ivory Coast where corruption is a national sport. Consequentlyhow can Switzerland control the activities of small concerns proliferating in niche sectors in order to take full advantage of this economic centre?

How can one spot the scam artists who promise the earth and who on top of it have powerful family connections in these oil producing countries? Constant vigilance is required. For this reason, do not have faith in a mantra whose empty meaning outweighsits business reality: «depth of vision gives rise to depth of action». Depth of action cannot be measured by the number of press pieces but only by the number of satisfied clients.

As far as depth of vision is concerned, mistrust is a definite plus whenvision appears to be limited to … how many millions CFA francs are involved.