Dries Coetzee (15.11.1966 - 01.07.2021), a South African citizen, born on a farm in the North West of South Africa. After school, he joined the South African Army and was selected into Special Forces where he served for nine years during the Angolan war. After his resignation, as an officer, he worked in the private security sector in South Africa.

He then served in Iraq as a private security contractor for four years. Initially he was a PSD team leader and then Site Security Development Manager in the American / Iraq reconstruction and development program. During the last year of his service in Iraq, the company acquired an aircraft and Dries was made responsible for transporting contractors and security personnel to the various construction sites in Iraq. He was the holder of a Commercial pilot’s license.

In 2008, he started working for an oil exploration company in the west of the DRC as country security manager for three years. During this time, an international tobacco company approached him to oversee their security in the DRC. He relocated to Goma during a period of instability in the east of the Congo and fell in love with it. As a person driven by change, challenge and excitement, the creation of his own specialized security company, Latlong International, came naturally.

Since March 2022, Gilbert Dilis is part of the Latlong family; as Operational Director, he is responsible for all Latlong security services in the DRC.

Before his engagement with Latlong, Gilbert was an Officer in the Belgian Army (Infantry, Para Commando and Special Forces) and participated in different military operations on this continent (Somalia, Rwanda, Burundi, the DRC as well as Congo-Brazza) and beyond. He was security advisor for Central Africa and worked in different embassies (DRC, Rwanda, Burundi, Zimbabwe). From 2011 until now, he was head of security for the Virunga National Park (VNP) in the east of the DRC.