Four US Citizens Charged After DRC Coup d’état Attempt
On April 9, 2025, the District of Utah unsealed a criminal complaint charging four US citizens with conspiring to conduct an illegal coup d’état against the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Of the four men — Marcel Malanga, 22, Tyler Thompson, 22, Benjamin Zalman-Polun, 37, and Joseph Peter Moesser, 67 — only Peter Moesser was arrested on US soil.[1] The three other men (Marcel Malanga, Tyler Thompson, and Benjamin Zalman-Polun) have already been tried and convicted in the DRC. They are currently being held in New York and are expected to make their initial appearance soon at a federal courthouse in Brooklyn. Moesser made his initial appearance at federal court on April 10, 2025, in Salt Lake City, Utah.