Complaint Review: Ali Taher - Washington, DC, Kinshasa, DRC Washington, DC, Kinshasa, DRC

Ali Taher is a dishonest businessman from Africa.  He conducts illegal business out of the Fairmont Hotel in Washington, DC.  Mr. Taher claims to be the very close nephew and business partner of the President of Chad.  I later found out that is not quite true.  In addition, he made claims of his prominence in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and that he has a close relationship with the President and with the government ministers of the DRC.  He has photographs of the passports of certain DRC officials and businessmen which he shows to gain credibility in the United States.  Besides those photographs, Mr. Taher was never able to prove that he actually has those close relationships with those government officials in the DRC. 

Mr. Taher told me he represented a prominent businessman in the DRC.  Mr. Taher wanted to engage me as a consultant to help that DRC-based businessman conduct certain business in the U.S. and to obtain a U.S. visa.  I told him my firm could perform the work for $5 million.  Mr. Taher provided many excuses for why the businessman in the DRC could only pay $3 million.  The tricky silver-tongued Mr. Taher dishonestly promised to pay me with other assets in the DRC if my firm would do the work for only $3 million.  Based on the promises of Mr. Taher, I signed the contract for that substantially lower amount with that businessman in the DRC in June 2020.

After signing the contract, I later discovered that Mr. Taher had convinced me to reduce down that contract from $5 million to $3 million so that Mr. Taher could dishonestly keep a substantial amount of those funds.  Mr. Taher also insisted that I pay him and another gentleman several hundred thousand dollars into their U.S. bank accounts.  I also discovered that Mr. Taher’s promises of other forms of compensation in the DRC were outright lies in order to induce me to sign the contract for a lower amount.

Mr. Taher is corrupt, dishonest and cannot be trusted.  Everything needs to be in writing with him.  He has a propensity for changing the terms of a deal after agreeing to certain business terms upfront.  Even worse, Mr. Taher has a penchant for making improper payments and asked me to make certain payments to people in the U.S. that seemed like bribes to me.  I refused to participate in that.

Mr. Taher also has an American colleague named Joe Gatt transmit emails on his behalf in order to avoid paper trails back to Mr. Taher.  Mr. Taher is a sneaky, dishonest man having Mr. Gatt act as his puppet.  Mr. Taher pretends that he does not understand English and that he can only understand French.

In the end, my firm wound up working for several weeks for free and was forced to return the funds to the businessman in the DRC.  It has been a nightmare for me and my firm and for my reputation.

The U.S. Department of Justice should investigate Mr. Taher.  In addition to his unethical and illegal business practices, he is living at the Fairmont Hotel in Washington DC and directing lobbying efforts here illegally because he has not registered as a lobbyist.  Beware of Ali Taher!