Tanzanian billionaire Mohammed Dewji in Dar es Salaam

Mohammed Dewji

NAIROBI, KENYA: Tanzanian billionaire Mohammed Dewji has been kidnapped in early Thursday morning incident which spread like a bush-fire on social media platforms.

A local daily in Tanzania says, Dewji was kidnapped on his way to the Oysterbay hotel in in Dar es Salaam for a routine gym exercise.

Dar es Salaam regional commissioner Paul Makonda said the businessman was kidnapped by two men as he entered the hotel.

“They fired a gun and then they opened the gate,” Makonda said, adding that security personnel had started a search for Dewji.

Witnesses, including the guards manning the gate at the hotel, were being questioned, he said.

Forbes puts real time net worth at $1.5B (over Sh100billion). He is the Chief Executive Officer of METL (Mohammed Enterprises Tanzania Ltd,  a Tanzanian conglomerate founded by his father in the 1970s.

METL is active in textile manufacturing, flour milling, beverages and edible oils in eastern, southern and central Africa.

It operates in at least six African countries and has ambitions to expand to several more. According to Forbes, the billionaire signed the Giving Pledge in 2016, promising to donate at least half his fortune to philanthropic causes.