Police rumble rumba king's illegal immigrant racket

The career of Papa Wemba - king of the Congolese rumba and the best-dressed man in town - never missed a beat for 30 years, peaking when the American record industry crowned him the best of all African singers.

But the tempo of his career was broken when French police arrested him last week for allegedly using his band as a cover for importing illegal immigrants into Europe for $3,500 (£2,400) a head. Provisional charges have been made against Wemba for organising the operation and falsifying travel documents

Quite why Wemba, 53 - whose concerts have filled football stadiums from the United States to Japan - should need the extra cash has yet to be explained, but the methods used by a musician who launched his European career under the name of John Presley were too clumsy to go unnoticed.

Jules Shungu Wembadio Pene Kikumba, to give him his full name, operates from a house in a working-class Paris suburb among a largely immigrant population. Apart from running three groups, including Viva la Musica, he is also president of the Sape, an informal club of Africans from Congo-Kinshasa and Congo-Brazzaville, whose extravagant and original use of brand-name clothes has influenced fashion across the world.

For the past two years, French and Belgian police have been tapping his phone to try to solve the riddle of why so many musicians vanished after being recruited in the Democratic Republic of Congo to join his groups. Suspicions were raised when 216 players and dancers turned up at Paris airport. So few returned to Congo that the Kinshasa government asked for an official inquiry.

Since then, there have been several occasions when groups recruited in Africa were found to be incapable of playing instruments. The joint operation between French and Belgian police ended with Papa Wemba's arrest when records showed that in the past few months he had recruited enough musicians and women dancers to equip several orchestras and corps de ballet.

'So far we have identified about 300 people who entered Europe but did not return to Congo,' a judicial official said.

Papa Wemba was released under police surveillance because of fears that his arrest would cause disturbances. In August 2001 he was questioned by Belgian police but released after rioters sacked the Belgian embassy in Kinshasa.