...Manuel Vicente...the chairman and chief executive of Sonangol...is...a partner in a syndicate founded by well-connected Cantonese entrepreneurs who...[operate out of] Hong Kong’s Queensway,...[called] China International Fund or China Sonangol...These deals are shrouded in secrecy. However, they appear to grant the Queensway syndicate remarkably profitable terms. If that is right, then they would be depriving some of the world’s poorest people of desperately needed wealth. Because the syndicate has done deals with the regimes in strife-torn places, such as Zimbabwe and Guinea, it may also have indirectly helped sustain violent conflicts. The Economist repeatedly put these accusations to the people who feature in this article, asking for their side of the story. But—with one exception, noted below—we heard nothing...[A major] complaint about the Queensway syndicate is that in Africa it has failed to meet many of the obligations it took on...Zimbabwe is still awaiting even a fraction of its promised infrastructure...The situation in Angola is more complicated, though also disappointing...In Guinea the syndicate came to the rescue of the junta...[after] government men went on the rampage [in 2009], raping women by the score and massacring more than 150 protesters in a sports stadium, which triggered EU and African Union sanctions...Rather than fixing Africa’s lack of infrastructure, Chinese entrepreneurs and Africa’s governing elites look as if they are conspiring to use the development model as a pretext for plunder. [also refers to Newbright International, Wu Yang, Sinopec, African Development Corporation, Sino-Zimbabwe Development]