Aug 20, 2021
Portrait of a Con Artist: Emmanuel Weyi
Emmanuel Ntima Weyi, a Congolese/American “businessman,” has been conning and scamming people for decades. It is time for him and his lies to be exposed.
UPDATE: As a result of this page, I have now been contacted by five more victims. I have not been allowed to update his WikiPedia page but hope to do so in 2022. I have won my first law suit against his company, Group Wey, of Denver.
He may be using a different name. He is 63 years old.
He recently used the name “Emma Wey,” and there are other variations using the last name “Wey,” rather than “Weyi.”
He is currently in Kampala, Uganda.
His email is emweyi@gmail.com
His phone number is 720 334–5214.
His Wikipedia page is protected by editors.
Background
Emmanuel Weyi was born Ntima Weyi in the north of Congo on 29th of May, 1959. He was educated in Europe and moved to Dallas, then Denver, Colorado. He is or was married to Odette Weyi of Kisangani Congo, and he claims she is from the prominent family of Simon Kimbangu. She is likely also involved in his scams, though I have no direct evidence of that. His son, Jonathan Wamba, in Denver, received and disbursed the funds I wired.
He is the father of three boys: Brentan, Jonathan, and Randy. He claims to have high-level connections to wealthy and powerful people throughout Africa and the United States. Jonathan has changed his last name to “Wamba” to avoid being associated with his family name, though Jonathan is also a criminal. From interviews with previous victims, I believe Brentan Weyi has also helped his father scam people.
For the past 20-plus years, Emmanuel Weyi has been conning people into giving him money. He is very good at telling stories. He is the kind of person who makes good people in the Congo suspicious to outsiders — he is hurting the very people he claims to want to help. While most Congolese people are honest, hardworking people, Emmanuel Weyi works his way into society and lies about everything, promises big things, and has no problem inflicting pain on his victims. He is the very worst kind of profiteer, con man, and thief. He represents the dark side of humanity. His actions show how willing he is to hurt others for his own gain.
In February, 2022, Emmanuel was evicted from the $160-per-month room he was renting from a woman in Kampala, Uganda, because he failed to pay his rent for six months.
My story
My name is David Siegel. In 2021, Emmanuel Weyi posed as a very wealthy businessman with hundreds of millions of dollars in gold and cash. He clearly has some history of mining in Congo and probably made some money that way, but he seems to have shifted to conning people. He took money from me using a signed contract for a loan that he never repaid. He promised me work, he promised to donate $1 million to my nonprofit (with $8 million more to come, he said), and he asked me to work on many business projects that turned out to be fake. His son, Jonathan, played along with his charade. I know he has taken money from others. He has even approached my friends asking them for money. He uses many different tactics.
In 2015, he asked people for money to support his candidacy to run for president of the Democratic Republic of Congo. He sent out press releases and got himself written up in the Denver Fox News and the LA Times. He may have simply used that money personally. I don’t know, but this is his style. He asks people for money to help him, promising much greater rewards, and then he just keeps the money. My guess is that he has not paid taxes on any of this income.
Emmanuel is the perfect con artist. He presents himself well, is knowledgeable about many aspects of business and politics, and he always promises big things. In the process of doing something really big, he asks for a loan because for some reason his cash is tied up, he just needs a short-term loan. Or he builds up your trust in a big deal, then he asks for a small deal where he gets money first. He delays and delays, always saying you have to be patient, he is going to do really big things with you.
He conducts two main scams I know of:
- He wants to do a huge gold trade with your company, he talks about it for months, many metric tons, special air flights, insurance, guards, special relationship with the FBI, etc. Then after months of this, he says he’s bringing the first 10 kilos by himself to you for a test, so just pay for that ahead of time and he’ll bring it to you and deliver it personally. Once he has your money, he sends you excuses about why he is held up.
- He wants to hire you to work with him on a project involving moving many metric tons of gold and other made-up assets. But — he’s going through a divorce, his funds are frozen, something has come up, he just needs $50k to make sure the shipment goes through and he’ll pay you right back with an extra $25k bonus. He is happy to sign a contract to this effect. He has been doing this to people for a long time.
He is willing to sign contracts and notes. He collaborates with his son, Jonathan, in Denver. He always has an excuse for why something isn’t working out as planned. He always delays and delays.
He also started the Colorado Sickle Cell Foundation, which has no web site. Its status has been categorized as “delinquent” for years, and there is no office at the listed address. He may also have used that to get money from people and spend it on himself, I don’t know.
I hope to find other people he has conned, so we can file complaints in several states and with the US government. Because of this web page, two people have contacted me. I now have heard from seven people whom he has either scammed or tried to scam.
I know the FBI and the Denver District Attorney’s office both have files on him. I and the others are happy to collaborate with the FBI, FTC, the Internet Crime Complaint Center, and other government agencies to give them a better picture of Weyi and his business dealings.
In my opinion, it is likely that he is mentally ill. He believes his own stories. He remembers things that didn’t happen to justify his lies.
Dan’s Story
I received this from a man who found this page:
My name is Dan Swesey. I live in Denver, Colorado. In 2016, I met Emmanuel Weyi when he was fundraising for his phony “campaign” to become president of the Congo. I believed him. I helped him find donors and gave him the money. This was all a scam from the beginning, and his two sons, Jonathan Weyi and Brentan Weyi, were both involved. I raised several thousands of dollars for his “campaign”. He eventually promoted to “ senior advisor”.
Around this time, his son Jonathan lost a newborn child. I attended the funeral. Jonathan and his wife had unsuccessfully tried to raise money for a casket on GoFundMe, so the body was buried in a makeshift box. No one was there but immediate family and my wife and I. This was another big red flag I didn’t see clearly enough, because he told me so many times how many friends he had and how important he was.
He told people I was broke. He had people write checks to me, the he asked me to cash them and give them the cash. My pride allowed me to look past the 500 red flags. I let it go on too long.
Emmanuel is full of ridiculous stories to make him look important. He attempts to emulate and repeat what he learns from movies and tv. He tried to con a successful business friend of mine into taking a trip to Georgia, where a certain chemical could be purchased ($80K) to wash US currency that had been dyed black to avoid declaration at US Customs. Of course, this was just another story to get someone to give him money. He is always “working” with “very important” and “high level” “government officials.” Everything he says is a lie. I think he actually believes many of them himself. I’m glad David is helping people learn about him. The sooner he goes to jail, the better.
His Wikipedia page
His Wikipedia page comes up first in search results. I have written a separate article on how Wikipedia inadvertently helps scammers take money from their victims.
He may be using a different name
Because of my efforts, more people can now learn he is a con man before he cons them. Therefore, I expect him to start using a different name.
His Colorado phone number
He uses his Colorado number to make calls and for Whatsapp. It is:
720 334–5214
Companies he has been involved with
- Groupe Weyi Export, Denver (defunct)
- Group Wey Export, Denver (still active)
- Wey Investment Limited in Uganda
- Groupe Weyi International (probably defunct)
I know of nine people he has conned or tried to con. Sometimes for a few thousand dollars, others for hundreds of thousands.
There will be much more information here over time. For now I am looking for others whom he has scammed.
If you have had any business contact with Emmanuel Weyi or his son Jonathan, if he has asked you for money or taken money from you, please contact me in confidence. Several people have already done so. I hope we can work together to get our money back and bring him to justice.
