Rakesh Saxena

Indian businessman wanted in Thailand on charges of embezzling $88 million from the Bangkok Bank of Commerce.

Sierra Leone - Arms to Africa Affair

The Canadian Globe and Mail reported on 1 August 1997, that it had obtained documents showing a conspiracy to use mercenaries to overthrow Sierra Leone's military rulers. Momodu Koroma, Minister of Presidential Affairs for the government-in-exile of President Ahmed Tejan Kabbah, Rakesh Saxena, head of Vancouver-based Tidewater Management Corp, and Tim Spicer, the head of Sandline International, a military consulting firm similar to Executive Outcomes. Saxena is an Indian citizen and former Thai bank official who is fighting extradition to Thailand in connection with financial problems with one of Thailand's largest banks. Saxena holds a bauxite concession in West Africa and is looking to expand his operations there. Sandline International's chairman, Tony Buckingham, is a major shareholder in Diamond Works Ltd, a Vancouver company which holds six diamond mining properties in Sierra Leone. The documents show Saxena paid Spicer $70,000 in consultancy fees plus expenses to prepare a realistic appraisal of the situation in Sierra Leone by the end of July. "Our offer of assistance to the Sierra Leonean government is undoubtedly motivated by our desire to establish and perhaps consolidate our position in that part of the world" Saxena wrote in a letter to Spicer.

Connections

• Tim Spicer