Trump’s Highest Bidder, Gertler? Sanctions Reprieve Lifted – Gertler, Magnitsky, DRC

Israeli billionaire Dan Gertler (Screen capture YouTube)

Dan Gertler and the Magnitsky Sanctions, Loopholes, State Sanctioned Violations, Trump, Guiliani and Billions

We have written and opined at great lengths about Dan Gertler, the mining tycoon sanctioned under the Magnitsky Act sanctions and the final gift from President Trump to Gertler, a lifting of those sanctions. Make no mistake, that lifting was unsurprising when coupled with the Guliani Ukraine affair. To those of us who followed the ever-changing political landscape in the DRC, the US’s unbridled support of an otherwise undemocratic election in the DRC, the securities’ firms that played a role in the movement of information, and the tail numbers of Gertler’s planes coupled with the travels of Trump’s personal attorney, Rudolph Guiliani, this political-financial network was foreseeable. It was our opinion then and now, that Guiliani was paid for his liaison services, which were blessed through a web of quasi-legitimate securities’ firms. Beyond that, in what capacity Guiliani was traveling to the Ukraine fairly regularly, and his labyrinthine ties to Ukraine at that time remain the subject of debate.

We have opined about the various loopholes and veritable crawl spaces that have allowed Gertler access to millions, if not billions of dollars, otherwise unavailable under the Magnitsky Sanctions Regime. Some of this money was allegedly owed to Gertler by Glencore. The “praise” bestowed upon Gertler by foreign diplomats is almost embarrassing, but may have been required to get cooperating countries on board with the payment scheme. The workaround was craftily organized by funneling money through a payment system of mazes to Gertler via a series of Euro-based workarounds which required the assistance of the Swiss banking network and US Government intervention. It is unlikely the Swiss would have been involved absent a very public statement by the US. It is our opinion that the loopholes were identified and manipulated by President Trump and, in our opinion, Rudolph Guiliani, Paul Manaford and others within the Trump orbit.

Whether or not we have it all perfectly figured out remains a job for those with far higher pay grades.

While Gertler claims all of his actions in the DRC have been above-board, we think that depends upon whose morality and ethics one is using as the exemplar upon which all else is measured. As we see the world, Gertler’s almost unforgivable use of underpaid members of the DRC to afford him unquantifiable wealth is not a paragon of the divine intervention of his religious system of beliefs. Moreover, Gertler’s willingness to manipulate financial systems such that banks, investment companies and frankly heads of states and countries made his acquisition of wealth all possible, is all the more unsettling.

Mining Tycoon, Steinmetz, Kushner, Guinea, Switzerland and…

Israeli billionaire Beny Steinmetz has been at the centre of an international investigation into alleged bribery to win mining rights in Guinea. (Image from Beny Steinmetz’s website)

Beny Steinmetz: Mining tycoon in Swiss trial over Guinea deal

“A billionaire French-Israeli diamond magnate, Beny Steinmetz, has appeared in court in Switzerland to face trial over alleged corruption linked to a major mining deal in Guinea.

He has always denied his company, BSGR, paid multi-million dollar bribes to obtain iron ore mining exploration permits in southern Guinea in 2008.

He travelled to Geneva from Israel for the two-week trial.

If convicted he could face up to 10 years in prison.

Steinmetz, 64, was previously sentenced in absentia to five years in prison by a court in Romania for money laundering.

Swiss prosecutors say Steinmetz paid about $10m (£7.4m) in bribes, in part through Swiss bank accounts, to gain the rights to Guinea’s iron ore deposits in the Simandou mountains.

The area is believed to contain the world’s largest untapped iron ore deposits.

His lawyer Marc Bonnant says “we will plead his innocence”.

Washington, DC, Free and Fair Elections, the DRC, Dan Gertler, Mer, Magnitsky and Guiliani…

Flag of the Democratic Republic of Congo

Mer, Kabila, the Congo, Dan Gertler and… Rudi Guiliani… and then There’s Magnitsky

This opinion is written following a brillliant article that came out in Buzzfeed on December 30, 2020 and should be read in the context of that article entitled:

A Secretive Company Needed To Convince Washington That Congo’s Election Would Be “Free And Fair.” It Found A Friendly Ear Among Trump Allies.

A BuzzFeed News investigation, based on thousands of pages of documents and more than 100 interviews in the US, Congo, and Europe, provides a first-ever look inside Mer’s aggressive campaign to influence the Trump administration and serve Kabila’s interests. It shows how such efforts can shape foreign policy in ways unbeknownst to both the public and senior government officials, through meetings and phone calls that leave few witnesses and little trace of the private influences involved.

In this case, the most powerful nation in the world swept aside authoritarian abuses — even when many of its own top diplomats thought such a decision flew in the face of US interests.

Despite all the promises that Kabila’s proxies made in Washington that year, Congo’s election, ultimately held in December 2018, was neither free nor fair. Citing voting data that leaked after the election, international observers said that it was brazenly rigged in favor of a candidate with whom Kabila had struck a secret power-sharing deal. Kabila would officially step down, but he would still command Congo’s security forces, his allies would still hold top Cabinet positions, and his party would still wield a legislative majority.

Within days of the election, the leaked voting data sparked protests across Congo. Heads of state in Europe and Africa called for an international investigation. The US echoed the denunciation.

Mer’s efforts in Washington looked doomed.

But a month after the election, in January 2019, the Trump administration suddenly dropped its objections and instead praised “Kabila’s commitment to becoming the first president in DRC history to cede power peacefully through an electoral process.” The decision to reverse course came from Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, BuzzFeed News has learned. But it shocked veteran diplomats and rank-and-file State Department officials who had crafted the initial policy. And it put an end to the international coalition that was forming to examine the election.

Read the Buzzfeed article in its entirety here.

Let me refresh your memory, on November 7, 2019, in a follow up to an article I posted on November 6, 2019, I published an opinion piece entitled “Dan Gertler and the OFAC Sanctions – Someone Had to Have Been Negotiating with Glencore” wherein I corrected the record as to dates from the previously posted article and presented my theories. The relevant corrected dates of that article, however, only serve to substantiate my theory, that there were a series of well-timed announcements, one corresponding though seemingly unconnected to the other and all subtly buried in a haze of smoke and mirrors. Then came the pandemic and any modicum of an investigation into the activities of the relevant players fell to the wayside.

I maintain that there were lobbyists behind the scenes negotiating on Gertler’s behalf with respect to the Magnitsky Act Sanctions and corresponding payments from Glencore allegedly due to Gertler. Gertler’s proven connection to Kabila providing a backdrop. In 2019 I did not complicate matters, however, by adding in the Congo/Glencore connection because I had fully intended to fill in that piece at some future date. Suffice it to say that the sanctions were imposed upon Dan Gertler (and his related companies) by the United States for his mining activities and human rights abuses in the Congo. While both the US, for formality’s sake, and Gertler and his associates now deny the allegations of abuse that triggered the imposition of the sanctions, The Africa Report, Global Witness and Bloomberg to name a few, have made direct and undeniable connections between Gertler and those abuses. They have also directly connected Gertler to Kabila and Kabila to Gertler. While they have not necessarily tied Gertler to Kabila’s reelection, or rather re-positioning of power, the connection is largely undeniable; and we maintain the whole show was being negotiated by Guiliani and/or his associates and Mer.