Image copyright AFP Image caption Financial magazine Forbes says Mohammed Dewji is worth $1.5bn (£980m) 
 
 The man said to be Africa's youngest billionaire has been kidnapped by masked gunmen in Tanzania's main city Dar es Salaam, police say. 
 
 Mohammed Dewji, 43, was abducted outside a swanky hotel gym where he was going for his routine morning workout. 
 
 Three people have been arrested in connection with the incident and two of the abductors were believed to be foreign nationals, police added. 
 
 The motive for Mr Dewji's abduction is still unclear. 
 
 Who is Mohammed Dewji? 
 
 Financial magazine Forbes puts his wealth at $1.5bn (£980m), and has described him as Tanzania's only billionaire. 
 
 In a 2017 report, it said Mr Dewji was Africa's youngest billionaire. 
 
 Mr Dewji is also a major sponsor of one of Tanzania's biggest football teams, Simba. 
 
 He promised in 2016 to donate at least half his fortune to philanthropic causes, Forbes said. 
 
 Mr Dewji, locally known as Mo, is credited with turning his family business from a wholesale and retail enterprise into a pan-African conglomerate, reports the BBC's Athuman Mtulya from Dar es Salaam. 
 
 His company, MeTL, has interests in textile manufacturing, flour milling, beverages and edible oils in at least six African states. 
 
 Mr Dewji served as a ruling party MP for a decade until 2015. He told the BBC in a 2014 interview that this possibly made it easier for him to meet top politicians, but it did not give him an unfair advantage, as other businessmen also had access to them. 
 
 Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Tanzania's Mohammed Dewji spoke to the BBC in 2014 
 
 Environment Minister January Makamba, a friend of Mr Dewji, tweeted that he had spoken to Mr Dewji's father and the family confirmed that he had been kidnapped. 
 
 'Relaxed approach to security' 
 
 By Caroline Lewis, former MeTL employee 
 
 Mohammed Dewji has huge celebrity status in Tanzania. You would be hard pressed to find a person in Dar es Salaam who did not know of Mohammed or the Dewji family and he would often draw large crowds at public events. 
 
 But despite his wealth and fame he has always been incredibly relaxed in his approach to security - in fact all the Dewji family were. 
 
 He never moved with security guards or bouncers and would often pop out to the gym on his lunch break or to meet friends after work unaccompanied. 
 
 In his day to day life he didn't look like a billionaire - he was a friendly, affable young man going about his business. 
 
 What more do we know about his abduction? 
 
 The abduction took place in the affluent neighbourhood of Oysterbay. 
 
 The kidnappers fired shots in the air before driving away with the billionaire, eyewitnesses said. 
 
 Image copyright EPA Image caption Police officers inspect Mohammed Dewji's vehicle after his abduction 
 
 Mr Dewji, a fitness enthusiast, had no security guards with him and had driven to the gym on his own, Dar es Salaam regional police commissioner Paul Makonda told reporters. 
 
 Two of the kidnappers were white men, he added. 
 
 Security personnel across Tanzania have been put on high alert in the hunt for the abductors, police said. 
 
 Are kidnappings common in Dar es Salaam? 
 
 By Athuman Mtulya, BBC Africa, Dar es Salaam 
 
 The city's name comes from Arabic, and literally means Abode of Peace. And Dar es Salaam is very safe, in comparison to Lagos or Johannesburg, the main cities in Nigeria and South Africa respectively. 
 
 Although Tanzania has seen a wave attacks and abductions of opposition politicians and perceived government critics, this is the first time a businessman of Mr Dewji's standing has been kidnapped in the country. 
 
 Businessmen have never felt at risk of being kidnapped and they often move around on their own. Some may have chauffeurs, but not bodyguards. So Mr Dewji's abduction has come as a huge shock. ||||| By Mnaku Mbani @mnaku28 mmbani@tz.nationmedia.com 
 
 Dar es Salaam. The abduction of Tanzania’s top billionaire, Mohammed Dewji, may have been the first incident to have happened in the East African nation but similar occurrences have also happened in South Africa, Nigeria and Mozambique this year, data show. 
 
 Mr Dewji was abducted on Thursday, October 11, 2018 at 5:00AM as he was walking into a gym at Colossium Hotel gym. 
 
 Police have since launched a manhunt into the incident. 
 
 A review by The Citizen shows that the top Dollar billionaire is the sixth to have been abducted on Africa’s soil in 2018 alone, with South Africa accounting for the lion’s share of the number. 
 
 A similar incident took place in South Africa in March when businessman Shiraz Gathoo was kidnapped after the kidnappers organized a bogus police roadblock in March. He was released after spending five months in captivity in circumstances that were not made public even as pundits speculated that a ransom was paid to secure his freedom. 
 
 The Sunday Times of South Africa reported in April this year (2018) that in three years, over 40 businessmen had been kidnapped in South Africa in a period of three years‚ with sophisticated syndicates demanding ransoms for their safe return. 
 
 Again in March this year, another South African businessman who does business in Mozambique, Andre Hanekom, was abducted from a parking lot of the Amarula Hotel located in the northern side of Palma town, Cabo Delgado Province in Mozambique. 
 
 Again in South African, a 65-year-old South African businessman Mr Liyaqat Ali Parker, was kidnapped in July this year (2018). 
 
 The five kidnappers abducted Parker at the basement of his company in Parow‚ Cape Town. 
 
 Mr Parker is the founder of the Foodprop Group‚ which owns the Foodworld chain of supermarkets. He is also a board member of Al Amien Foods and a non-executive director of Brimstone Investment Corporation. 
 
 During the same month (July), the father of Nigerian professional player, Mikel Obi, Chief Michael Obi, was kidnapped hours before a World Cup encounter between Nigeria and Argentina. 
 
 He was abducted in south-east Nigeria as he was travelling to a funeral along the Makurdi-Enugu expressway from Jos. 
 
 Police in Nigeria were able to secure his release but Mikel said his father was tortured during a week-long ordeal. 
 
 It was the second time that he has been kidnapped, with the first one being in August 2011. 
 
 In August, Mr Sikhumbuzo Mjwara, 41, the owner of uMhlanga’s upmarket Barrio Restaurant, was kidnapped by unknown people in South Africa. 
 
 After more than a month of searching for Mr Mjwara, police arrested three suspects believed to be linked to his kidnapping. 
 
 Mr Mjwara, a former eThekwini Municipality employee, owns stakes in a chain of businesses, including several mining, investment and lifestyle companies. ||||| These unicorns are forever changing the way we interact with money. ||||| This article is over 2 months old 
 
 Mohammed Dewji reportedly abducted by gunmen as he entered gym in Dar es Salaam 
 
 Africa’s youngest billionaire has been kidnapped by gunmen in Dar es Salaam, according to officials. 
 
 Mohammed Dewji, 43, who is said to have a fortune of $1.5bn (£1.1bn) and is the president of MeTL Group, which operates in about 10 countries across sectors ranging from agriculture to transport and food, was abducted as he entered a hotel gym. 
 
 The regional governor, Paul Makonda, said: “Initial information indicates he was kidnapped by whites travelling in two vehicles. This kind of incident is new here.” 
 
 Lazaro Mambosasa, the Dar es Salaam police chief, told a press conference the kidnappers had “shot into the air” before bundling Dewji into a car. 
 
 He said police were looking for suspects and had already made arrests. 
 
 Dewji was born in Tanzania and studied at Georgetown University in Washington DC. He served as an MP from 2005 to 2015. 
 
 In 2013, he became the first Tanzanian to be on the cover of Forbes magazine, and was named Forbes Africa person of the year in 2015. 
 
 Dewji is also the main shareholder in Simba football club, based in Dar es Salaam. 
 
 He is ranked 17th by Forbes on its list of Africa’s billionaires. 
 
 Dewji is married with three children. In 2016, he signed a pledge to donate at least half his fortune to philanthropic causes.
– A man reported to be Tanzania's only billionaire and the youngest one in Africa has been kidnapped in what the BBC is calling a "huge shock." Mohammed Dewji was seized by masked gunmen Thursday morning as he entered a hotel gym in the Tanzanian city of Dar es Salaam, considered to be very safe. It's the sixth abduction of a billionaire in Africa this year, but the first in Tanzania, reports the Citizen. "This kind of incident is new here," regional commissioner Paul Makonda says, per the AFP, adding "initial information indicates he was kidnapped by whites travelling in two vehicles." Three people have been arrested, though police are on the lookout for more abductors, said to have fired shots into the air before driving off with the 43-year-old father of three, who was without bodyguards. A former employee says Dewji has "always been incredibly relaxed in his approach to security" despite huge fame, per the BBC. He transformed his family's retail business MeTL into a company with diverse interests in some 10 countries, reports the AFP. A former legislator who attended Georgetown University, Dewji previously vowed to donate half his fortune to charity; Forbes puts his worth at $1.5 billion.