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Maputo – A high profile businessman in Mozambique who is wanted by US authorities for his alleged involvement in drug trafficking, has been kidnapped in his mall in Maputo.

According to Mozambican media, Mohamed Bachir Suleman, who was always accompanied by his own armed security details, was abducted at gunpoint from a mosque located at his Maputo Shopping Centre yesterday.

Suleman is said to be a large-scale drug trafficker in Mozambique, and his network is believed to have contributed to the growing narcotics trade and related money laundering across southern Africa. No information could be obtained from the police about his kidnapping and his abductors remained unknown.

AFP reported in 2011 that Suleman was so well known in the southern African country that most Mozambicans just called him MBS. But Washington called him a drug lord, abetted by “endemic corruption” in this country that risked becoming Africa’s newest narco-state.

US President Barack Obama put Suleman on a list of specially designated narcotics traffickers and barred Americans from doing business with him.

Companies linked to Suleman — Grupo MBS Limitada, Grupo MBS-Kayum Centre and Maputo Shopping Centre, were sanctioned after he was added to the Obama administration list of international drug kingpins. – AFP