Jamil Sahid Mohamed

Jamil Sahid Mohamed (born 1936 in Freetown, Sierra Leone) is a Sierra Leonean businessman who made millions of dollars in diamond trade. He was exiled from Sierra Leone twice amidst accusations of a coup plot in 1987 and later for war profiteering. Mohamed built his fortune smuggling diamonds out of Sierra Leone during the 1970s and 1980s. He is widely regarded as the father of the Sierra Leone blood diamond trade. As a result of his activities he became one of the richest men in Africa. Along with Siaka Stevens, he is widely regarded to have played a major role in the destruction of the Sierra Leone economy, leaving a senseless legacy of death and poverty in his wake. Jamil Sahid Mohamed was born in Freetown, Sierra Leone to a Sierra Leonean father of Lebanese descent and an indigenous Sierra Leonean mother from the Mandingo ethnic group.

Yale Law School Professor Amy Chua's study of free market democracy and global instability stated: "the extent of Lebanese market dominance in Sierra Leone – historically and at present – is astounding."

The Lebanese trading community was a leftover import from Sierra Leone's British Colonial era.