• Businessman heads Congo trip to try to free U.S. prisoners
  

• Team of three runs foul of the authorities and has to flee
• Venture shows how Washington works with unofficial envoys

DAKAR, July 11 (Reuters) - An Israeli-American businessman, a former State Department official and a decorated Green Beret pitched up in the Democratic Republic of Congo in March with a message for President Felix Tshisekedi from the Trump administration.

Two days later, they fled the country in fear of arrest.

The three envoys had come with an offer from Washington: release three American prisoners on death row and, in return, President Donald Trump will accept your minerals-for-security proposal.

The trip started well with a police motorcycle escort from the airport, but a frosty first meeting with Tshisekedi’s security adviser, some ill-advised late-night target practice by some of the envoys and a Congolese general with an axe to grind put paid to the mission.

Reuters pieced together the course of events by speaking to the three Americans on the trip, a State Department official involved in the initiative, and two people the trio met during their brief stay in Congo’s capital Kinshasa.

The story of the ill-fated venture, which has not previously been reported, provides a glimpse of how the Trump administration is prepared to work through unconventional channels in pursuit of deals to bring Americans home, a top priority for the president.

“We want to work with folks who have the right connections, but more importantly, have the positive relationships that can help influence a decision-maker’s thinking … so it’s not uncommon for us to do that,” Dustin Stewart, Trump’s deputy special envoy for hostage affairs, who was involved in discussions on the initiative, told Reuters.

“We thought they had enough sway to talk to the right people. Obviously, that proved incorrect,” he said.

President Tshisekedi’s office did not respond to requests for comment for this article.

Congo has become a focus of U.S. diplomatic efforts to end the decades-long conflict in the east and help American companies access critical minerals, making the country ripe territory for endeavours such as this mission.

“Trump gave every indication right from the beginning that he was going to be purely transactional,” said Ebenezer Obadare, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. “He’s thrown out the old playbook. He’s not going through normal diplomatic channels.”