A Gem of a Project and Steinmetz… Who’s Benny Steinmetz Again? Think Kushner…

Dear Readers:

This is being published on 5.3.21 at 11:11am – type edited at 3:05pm.

HOW THE MIGHTY HAVE FALLEN:

If this is to be a thorough examination of the facts and circumstances surrounding Steinmetz, one cannot escape the inextricable link he has to Dan Gertler and, well, to Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump. There are no coincidences here.

We have posted information which should be food for thought below, as well as past stories on this subject.

Steinmentz pillaged in the West African nation of Guinea while Dan Gertler focused on the Democratic Republic of Congo. These men, mining magnates [uhhh… gangsters,] for lack of a better word, just drew maps on their turf. And, while all of this was happening, Kushner was drawing battle lines, protecting each from inside the White House. He helped to negotiate, or at least to facilitate, the parties liaising to raze the Magnitsky Act sanctions placed upon Dan Gertler; while at the same time somehow keeping Steinmetz out of the limelight.

It remains a question of how or why the Suisse government got involved in the Steinmetz case when they helped facilitate payments made by Glencore to Gertler around the sanctions; but as we have said repeatedly, everything is orchestrated. It is a well-choreographed dance.

Let’s see what happens with Gertler. And, well… let’s see where the dust settles on Steinmetz

P.S. Each of these men has denied any wrongdoing.

Jared KushnerCredit…Shawn Thew/European Pressphoto Agency

Steinmetz Link To Failed Mining Project To Be Probed In NY

Law360 (April 30, 2021, 8:12 PM EDT) — A New York judge on Thursday agreed to consider additional arguments that Israeli billionaire Beny Steinmetz is the alter ego of a company that owes Brazilian miner Vale SA more than $2.17 billion following a dispute over an ill-fated Guinean mining project.

U.S. District Judge Vernon S. Broderick ordered Vale to provide supplemental briefing in support of its bid to force Steinmetz to respond to its discovery requests, which it sent to the businessman over a year ago.

Read more at: https://www.law360.com/articles/1380519?sidebar=true?copied=1

ADDITIONAL READING:

Swiss Court Finds Israeli Businessman Beny Steinmetz Guilty of Corruption

Israeli billionaire Beny Steinmetz leaves the courthouse after a verdict on corruption charges, in Geneva, Switzerland January 22, 2021. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse



REUTERS

GENEVA (Reuters) – In a landmark verdict in one of the mining world’s most high profile legal cases, a Swiss criminal court found Israeli businessman Beny Steinmetz guilty of corruption and forgery on Friday and sentenced him to five years in jail with a sizeable fine.

The ruling after a two-week trial is a blow for Steinmetz, a diamond trader, whose pursuit of the world’s richest uptapped deposits of iron ore put him at the centre of a battle that has triggered probes and litigation around the world.

Steinmetz said he would appeal the verdict, which also included a 50 million Swiss francs ($56.48 million) fine.

“It is a big injustice,” he told reporters in the courtyard of the Geneva courthouse.

Steinmetz and two others were variously accused of paying or arranging payment of $10 million in bribes between 2006 and 2010 to Mamadie Toure, whom prosecutors say was one of the wives of the former president Lansana Conte, to obtain exploration permits for iron ore buried beneath the remote Simandou mountains of Guinea and of forging documents to cover it up through a web of shell companies and bank accounts.

Toure, who lives in Florida, could not be reached for comment.

All three defendants denied the charges.

Presiding judge Alexandra Banna said Steinmetz and his co-defendants had used fake accounts and attempted to have incriminating documents destroyed to hide their criminal behaviour.

Banna said that Steinmetz had made an immediate profit from the rights to mine and not a cent went to the West African nation of Guinea.

No one from the government in Guinea was immediately available to comment.

Steinmetz, 64, a former Geneva resident who moved back to Israel in 2016, has in the past been ranked as a billionaire and one of Israel’s wealthiest men. Asked by the court to estimate his personal fortune, he said it was $50-80 million.

US News and World Report: continue reading here.

Beny Steinmetz gets jail, Dan Gertler a reprieve

In december 2017 Donald Trump’s administration imposed financial sanctions on Dan Gertler. That came as a shock to the government of Joseph Kabila, who was then the president of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Mr Gertler, who was named alongside several allegedly crooked politicians and businessmen, was one of Mr Kabila’s closest friends. He was also a middlemanwho had sold much of Congo’s wealth in minerals to the world since arriving there in the wake of war in 1997.

America’s Treasury department said that Mr Gertler had “amassed his fortune through hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of opaque and corrupt mining and oil deals”. Between 2010 and 2012 alone Congo had “lost over $1.36 billion in revenues from the underpricing of mining assets that were sold to offshore companies linked to” the Israeli billionaire, it said. The sanctions froze Mr Gertler’s bank accounts and prevented any firm from doing business with him in dollars.

The Economist: Read here.

Bribe Cases, a Jared Kushner Partner and Potential Conflicts

By Jesse Drucker

• April 26, 2017

It was the summer of 2012, and Jared Kushner was headed downtown.

His family’s real estate firm, the Kushner Companies, would spend about $190 million over the next few months on dozens of apartment buildings in tony Lower Manhattan neighborhoods including the East Village, the West Village and SoHo.

For much of the roughly $50 million in down payments, Mr. Kushner turned to an undisclosed overseas partner. Public records and shell companies shield the investor’s identity. But, it turns out, the money came from a member of Israel’s Steinmetz family, which built a fortune as one of the world’s leading diamond traders.

The New York Times: Read here.

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.

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.

Dan Gertler Speaks, Sharing with the Congolese People? Really…. Part I.

#RDC #Corruption: Accusé par la justice américaine d’avoir corrompu des officiels congolais, dont Joseph Kabila, l’israélien Dan Gertler a adressé un message enregistré aux Congolais. Extrait pic.twitter.com/Jvw7o5EDD4

— Sonia Rolley (@soniarolley) November 16, 2020

We leave this to our readers to judge for yourselves.

Please, as you consider his words, keep in mind that the Congolese people have received little or nothing from Dan Gertler’s mining activities in the DRC.

Dan Gertler has had kosher food carted by private plane from Kinshasa to his locale at a cost of upwards of $20,000/day if that number still stands.

Dan Gertler has been the subject of Magnitsky Act sanctions for bad acts and conduct, not for his alleged generosity.

Judge for yourselves.

Glencore and Bribery – Gertler, and Speculation Re: an Attorney’s Activities in Ukraine

REFILE-UPDATE 2-Britain’s fraud office opens investigation into Glencore

Dec 5 (Reuters) – Britain’s Serious Fraud Office (SFO) has launched an investigation into Glencore concerning “suspicions of bribery,” the company said on Thursday.

Glencore, one of the world’s biggest commodity traders, is already subject to a U.S. Department of Justice enquiry in connection with corruption in Democratic Republic of Congo, Venezuela and Nigeria.

The SFO confirmed https://www.sfo.gov.uk/2019/12/05/sfo-confirms-investigation-into-suspected-bribery-at-glencore-group-of-companies it was investigating the conduct of business by the Glencore group of companies, its officials, employees, agents and associated persons, but said it could not comment further on a live investigation.

Glencore has said it will cooperate with the investigation.

The company’s shares dropped 6% to 223.9 pence following the announcement, pushing it to the bottom of London’s blue-chip index.

Over the course of this year, Glencore’s shares have fallen more than 20%, pressured by broader concerns about safety and sustainability in Democratic Republic of Congo.

CEO Ivan Glasenberg told investors earlier this week he expected to step down next year once a new management team is in place. (Reporting by Yadarisa Shabong in Bengaluru; Alistair Smout, Julia Payne and Barbara Lewis in London; Editing by Rashmi Aich and Jane Merriman)

Dan Gertler and the OFAC Sanctions – Someone Had to Have Been Negotiating with Glencore [OPINION]

Dan Gertler, Glencore’s partner and connection in Congo.
PHOTOGRAPHER: SIMON DAWSON/BLOOMBERG

DAN GERTLER, MAGNITSKY, JUNE 15, 2018 AND A SET OF ANNOUNCEMENTS

Dear Reader:

We reiterate that this is an opinion based upon research, public filings and other information available online as well as a wide array of analyses. Our contentions are not to be taken as doctrine. They are opinions.

Yesterday in our opinion piece entitled: “DAN GERTLER, HIS MONEY, THE PEOPLE WITHIN HIS VORTEX, THE DRC, GLENCORE, MAGNITSKY AND BOMBARDIER – PART I” we contended that the CNBC News report, which appeared to make a major announcement in terms of who represents Dan Gertler, was actually inconsequential in nature. We stated that we believe that the entire announcement was nothing more than smoke and mirrors since the FARA filings had actually been made in 2018.

This was nothing new.

Within that Opinion, we also commented on the date of Glencore’s victorious well-publicized announcement, made on June 15, 2018 and the significance of that date. On that date Glencore proclaimed that it had resolved payment issues with Dan Gertler. Those payment issues were adversely affecting shareholders in Glencore, a publicly traded company; and following that announcement shareholders celebrated. Dan Gertler was allegedly due hundreds of millions of dollars which were being tied up; and the uncertainty was holding the stock price hostage. The announcement set it free.

We remarked that in the context of those June 15 announcements, Glencore along with the help of the US and Swiss governments, had come up with a workaround that would allow them the ability to pay Gertler without violating the Magnitsky Act sanctions. What was remarkable to us was another announcement made on the same exact day as the Glencore announcement.

And here is where we made an error. We mistakenly stated that both the Glencore Announcement and the US Treasury Magnitsky Sanctions were announced on the same day.  We were unequivocally mistaken as to the dates. The announcement of that day, June 15, 2018 by the US Treasury, were the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) Sanctions.

Indeed, Magnitsky had been announced by the Department of the Treasury on December 17, 2017, seven months earlier. For your perusal we have posted the Magnitsky Sanctions Notice below and highlighted the relevant section.

The Treasury Department announcement we posted yesterday was actually the announcement of the OFAC sanctions against entities related to Dan Gertler. 

To provide a bit of history:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnitsky_Act

The Magnitsky Act, formally known as the Russia and Moldova Jackson–Vanik Repeal and Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act of 2012, is a bipartisan bill passed by the U.S. Congress and signed into law by President Barack Obama in December 2012, intending to punish Russian officials responsible for the death of Russian tax accountant Sergei Magnitsky in a Moscow prison in 2009.

Since 2016 the bill, which applies globally, authorizes the US government to sanction those who it sees as human rights offenders, freeze their assets, and ban them from entering the U.S.^[1]

The main intention of the law was to punish Russian officials who were thought to be responsible for the death of Sergei Magnitsky by prohibiting their entrance to the United States and their use of its banking system.^[9] The legislation was taken up by a Senate panel the next week, sponsored by Senator Ben Cardin, and cited in a broader review of the mounting tensions in the international relationship.^[10][11] Browder later wrote that the Magnitsky Act found quick bipartisan support because the corruption exposed by Magnitsky was blatant beyond dispute, and “[t]here wasn’t a pro-Russian-torture-and-murder lobby to oppose it.”^[6]p. 329

In November 2012, provisions of the Magnitsky bill were attached to a House bill (H.R. 6156) normalizing trade with Russia (i.e., repealing the Jackson–Vanik amendment) and Moldova.^[12] On December 6, 2012, the U.S. Senate passed the House version of the law, 92–4.^[9] The law was signed by President Barack Obama on December 14, 2012.^{[13][14][15][16][17]}

In 2016, Congress enacted the Global Magnitsky Act, which allows the US government to sanction foreign government officials implicated in human rights abuses anywhere in the world.^[18]

Generally speaking, the Magnitsky Act is intended as a means to control the flow of money generated from activities that violate human rights. While arguably Dan Gertler is not a “government official” as strictly defined by the Act, his place in the morally challenged list of Magnitsky sanctioned individuals is his connection to Joseph Kabila’s activities in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The DRC is not the only  mineral wealthy impoverished nation where Gertler’s activities provide a thriving source of profiteering.

In no uncertain terms, businesses and partnerships that profit from digging and mining in the DRC (amongst others) while the Congolese people work in deplorable conditions, starve, have little to no access to healthcare and suffer all manner of indignities fit the definition for Magnitsky Act purposes. Whether or not Gertler got a fair shake is up to his attorneys to litigate. Alan Dershowitz, one of Gertler’s attorneys/lobbyists has commented that he believes that Gertler is being wrongly sanctioned. He may be right. That’s for him to defend.

But if you assume for a second that the Sanctions are a form of justice, we find ourselves asking how Gertler has been able to walk sanctioned waters without drowning. It is inconceivable that he has not had a top official negotiating to part those seas. That is the genesis of this opinion.   

In theory, if the Magnitsky Act were to be applied in spirit (and not just in faulty drafting), it would prevent someone engaging in any activities profiting from human rights abuses to have access to any capital, regardless of currency. Unfortunately, the Magnitsky Act, like many other US laws, their related acts or sanctions, have loopholes. The Magnitsky Act has no shortage of holes for educated treasure-hunters and they are best manipulated, like many US finance and tax laws, by the uber-wealthy. Mere mortals simply don’t have the advantages of lobbying teams. The loophole within Magnitsky that Glencore and Gerler were able to circumvent was the focus on business transacting and rendering payment in US Currency – the Dollar, the ever famous Greenback.

As we understand it, under Magnitsky a payment not made through a US company and/or in US Dollars, does not trigger sanctions. And, well… human rights be damned. Such is the case with the Glencore deal.

The US government, the Swiss government and others structured an artfully created carve-out that allowed Glencore to be unencumbered by its association with Gertler, allowed Gertler to retain access to hundreds of millions of dollars allegedly due and owing to him and provided Glencore’s shareholders some comfort. Our view is that someone with a savvy sense of finances, the law and intergovernmental relationships was responsible for orchestrating the shifting tides, lobbying the US President to sign the OFAC paperwork on a  particular date, and drafting and negotiating the Glencore/Gertler payment deal. In our opinion, the person or people had to have a vested financial interest in the outcome of those negotiations, enough legal savvy to understand the nuances, enough inside information into Glencore’s activities and the ear of the US Government.

The timing of the OFAC announcement on the same day as the Glencore announcement was either a really stupid mistake made by super savvy business-people, a misunderstanding, a Glencore leak or a poorly timed coincidence. We do not believe in coincidences. 

To the OFAC announcement, Consistent with Magnitsky Act, OFAC can also block the transfer of assets between related entities of those individuals sanctioned under Magnitsky. In Gertler’s case, the “not exhaustive” list which OFAC announced on June 15, 2018 includes entities with which Gertler is associated; and as of June 15, 2018 the list of entities had been expanded to 34. Interestingly, Glencore, which has acknowledged time and time again a partnership with Gertler, has not had its assets frozen under OFAC.  

That simple reality makes us wonder, who in the US government, the Treasury Department, the “Powers that Be” in these decisions has money invested in Glencore, a publicly traded company, such that Glencore has so far escaped unscathed and is, indeed, able to both continue to transact even with its associations to Gertler, and to pay Gertler, so long as those payments are not rendered in US Dollars. It is also able to continue its own mining activities unhindered.

Moreover, and perhaps more interesting, we note that regardless of which notice circulated on June 15, 2018, it is utterly inconceivable whomever negotiated that deal did not know the sanctions were coming down the pipeline and was not working on behalf someone with a vested financial interest. The shares of stock, as far as we have seen, went wild during the week immediately following the announcement.

Glencore plc (GLEN.L)

LSE – LSE Delayed Price. Currency in GBp

258.05+1.10 (+0.43%)

At close: 4:35PM GMT

To our view, there are two other very interesting points that can be made here. First, why was Glencore not itself sanctioned under the US Treasury’s announcement of June 15, 2018? It would seem that if the US Treasury sanctions were worth their weight in salt where Gertler is concerned, Glencore should have had its assets frozen with the 34 other Gertler associations. We are sure there are a valuable set of reasons why Glencore did not meet the criteria; but we can’t think of any.

Second, are there not tax implications of a decision to exclude payments under Magnitsky?

By our analysis (and it could be wrong), Magnitsky Act money, being money generated in US Dollars, is taxable under US tax laws. It is deemed a part of the long-arm jurisdiction of the US tax system, however much we may disagree with that long-arm. In contrast, once money is deemed to be outside of the scope of Magnitsky, that money is likely also outside the scope of the US Department of Finance’s taxing authority.

As such, it is our belief (and we could be wrong), that not only did Gertler and Glencore’s negotiator find a loophole to allow payment to Gertler, but also found a loophole for Gertler to avoid paying US taxes on this money. Moreover, we are guessing that he has also managed to skirt paying taxes on that hundreds of millions of dollars in any other jurisdiction. It is likely all quite legal and all a function of how the money was characterized in order to avoid Magnitsky.

Our only possible conclusion under the totality of all of the informaiton is that senior government officials in multiple countries were involved in the negotiations that both allowed Gertler to continue operating as though nothing had happened, wholly unencumbered by Magnitsky and that allowed Glencore to continue its operations, given its association with Gertler and Kabila. 

We reiterate that this is only an opinion. It is a theory, based upon publicly available information, logical conclusions and some guesswork and should be taken as nothing more. 

Is Dershowitz, Freeh and Apfel’s Representation of Gertler Really Such Big News? [AN OPINION]

 

Dan Gertler and former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, April 28, 2005Tomer Appelbaum

 

DAN GERTLER, HIS MONEY, THE PEOPLE WITHIN HIS VORTEX, THE DRC, GLENCORE, MAGNITSKY AND BOMBARDIER – PART I

Dear Reader:

This is unequivocally our Opinion. It is based upon an analysis of current events and relevant FARA filings. We have posted some of the filings as images on the bottom of this page.

We believe that recent news about Dan Gertler and those lobbying on his behalf are a red herring, a distraction. They are really old news. We believe that the importance in creating smoke and mirrors is to provide a different narrative to Giuliani’s involvement in the Ukraine and his potential connection with Dan Gertler, whether directly or through intermediaries. We are working on that connection.

This is an opinion and should not be taken as anything more. 

In 2017, a number of registrations were made which disclosed to the government that several companies were representing lobbying efforts for both the Democratic Republic of Congo and Dan Gertler. We feel that the DRC and Gertler are inextricably intertwined. He has a long and storied history with Kabila which in 2017 we wrote about extensively. 

The Panama Papers contain more elicit information about Gertler than about almost any other single subject; and his business dealings are creative, if nothing else. Again, this is an opinion.

We are not particularly fond of an industry which underpays citizens to dig for diamonds, cobalt, copper, emeralds and other riches and then makes zillions of dollars on the labor of those citizens who work to barely survive. Meanwhile their employers (using that term loosely) travel on a fleet of Bombardier Planes, have lavish meals delivered to Kinshasa, consistent with the laws of Kashrut of course, the cost of which is more than many of the citizens of the DRC will see in two generations of lifetimes.

We firmly believe that a mineral wealthy country should have citizens who share in that wealth and are not enslaved by it. It is our opinion that the DRC’s citizens are the victims of the vast amounts of wealth of Gertler, Kabila and their networks of associates. We believe it can only be viewed as a Shanda. There but for the Grace of G-d go I…  

In 2018 Alan Dershowitz, Gertler’s attorney (and therefore privileged confidant), Louis Freeh, also an attorney and a former FBI director between 1993 and 2001, and Gary Apfel, also an attorney, (the same brilliant attorney who notably assisted in the defense of Shalom Rubashkin and took on the issues of Criminal Justice Reform) were being paid to lobby on behalf of Dan Gertler. This is not new news. This is also not meant to create the illusion that somehow they are responsible for what is happening in the DRC. We voice no such opinion. They are lobbyists and attorneys and are getting paid to do a job.

The relevant filings were made under FARA in 2018.

What is notable is that at least one document was signed in 2019 and was only  now reported on at any great lengths in the CNBC News report (posted below). It is our position, an opinion, that this is all a great distraction. It is nothing new and should not be viewed as such.

It should be clearly understood that Dan Gertler was sanctioned under the Magnitsky Act.  This was reported by the US Department of the Treasury in a Press Release on June 15, 2018. The full text of that press release, which we are accepting as true and genuine by virtue of its source, is listed on the next page of this report. 

Through crafty maneuvering, and we believe with the help of a current confidant of President Trump, on the same day he was sanctioned, Glncore which allegedly owed Gertler millions, found a workaround to be able to pay Gertler his money. That workaround was to pay him in Euros through overseas bank accounts and companies.

It is our opinion, that the Magnitsky Act sanctions are worthless if a company can “workaround” them by utilizing foreign currency and sources of currency exchanges. Ultimately he is getting paid hundreds of millions of dollars whether he accepts them in “Greenbacks” or in some other currency. The Sanctions should apply to any currency, not just US Dollars, or there really is little point to them at all.

We also find the timing of the announcement of the sanctions and the settlement with Glencore (the company liable to him for back pay) to be somewhat questionable, if not outright insulting to anyone who believes that this is actually a sanction.

We believe that the arrangement with Glencore was back-channeled by another paid consultant with either direct or indirect connections to Gertler. It is that last piece of this opinion that we are working on.

Alan Dershowitz, Former FBI Director Lobbying for Sanctioned Israeli Billionaire

Diamond and mining tycoon Dan Gertler has been under U.S. sanctions since 2017 for corruption, human rights abuses in the Democratic Republic of Congo

Alan Dershowitz, an ally of U.S. President Donald Trump, and former FBI director Louis Freeh have officially registered with the U.S. government as lobbyists for Dan Gertler, an Israeli billionaire known for shady deals and corruption accusations.

The filing, which was first reported by U.S. network CNBC, will allow the two major Washington figures to advocate on behalf of Gertler, who has been under sanctions from the U.S. treasury since 2017.

According to CNBC, Dershowitz, who has never been registered as a lobbyist before, said he was only acting as Gertler’s lawyer.

The lobbying registration, despite only being released now, records the effective start date as October 17, 2018. Dershowitz was advising Gertler as early as last year, according to a New York Times report.

The decision to hire lobbyists is not surprising in itself. “He’s an international businessman and it’s very difficult to do business internationally” when under sanctions, Peter Jones, a campaign leader at international NGO Global Witness, told Al-Monitor.

The place of both Dershowitz and Freeh in Washington and their relationship to the current administration are significant, however.

Louis Freeh, who is also an attorney, was FBI director between 1993 and 2001. He registered to act as a lobbyist for the first time in March this year, but is known to have ties with other controversial figures. This includes former New York mayor and Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, whom Freeh hired to pressure the Romanian president, according to a report in The Independent, in connection with Hunter Biden.

Dershowitz has been an ally of both Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu, coming out publicly, including in Haaretz, to dispute the accusations of corruption against Israel’s embattled premier. He has come under scrutiny for his links to disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein.

The original sanctions against Gertler said he “amassed his fortune through hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of opaque and corrupt mining and oil deals in the Democratic Republic of the Congo,” mainly through his personal relationship with former President Joseph Kabila.

To continue reading click here.

 

ADDITIONAL READING:

Dershowitz, Freeh Register to Lobby for Sanctioned Billionaire

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-11-05/dershowitz-freeh-register-to-lobby-for-sanctioned-billionaire

High-profile defense attorney Alan Dershowitz and Louis Freeh, a former FBI director, have registered to lobby for an Israeli billionaire investor who’s been sanctioned by the U.S. government.

Dan Gertler, who the Treasury Department said amassed his fortune through “corrupt deals” in the Democratic Republic of Congo, hired Freeh Sporkin & Sullivan LLP to lobby Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, according to a registration statement it filed with Congress today. The filing was first reported by CNBC.

The Trump administration included Gertler in a crackdown it announced in December 2017 on human rights abusers and corrupt actors around the world. OFAC has also sanctioned 34 individuals and entities it says are tied to him, freezing their assets and shutting them out of the U.S. financial system.

Treasury said Gertler used his close friendship with Joseph Kabila, then president of the DRC, to act as a middleman for the sale of mining assets, requiring multinational countries to go through him to do business with the Congolese government. It estimated that between 2010 and 2012, the DRC lost $1.4 billion in revenues from the sale of under-priced assets to offshore companies linked to Gertler.

Dershowitz said he doesn’t agree with the government’s charges, but would present a defense in the proper venue. “Gertler is a wonderful, charitable man who’s done a great deal of good for the world,” he added.

The lobbying registration was required because his attorneys will be making legal arguments before a federal agency rather than a court, Dershowitz said. “You have to register,” he said, adding that he will be acting as a legal consultant. “I’m not a lobbyist.“

Freeh’s office declined to comment. A call made after business hours to Gertler’s office in Israel was not immediately returned.

Dershowitz lobbies for the criminal Israeli looter, Dan Gertler

Trump ally Alan Dershowitz and ex-FBI Director Louis Freeh are lobbying for an Israeli billionaire the US has accused of corruption

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/11/05/alan-dershowitz-ex-fbi-director-louis-freeh-lobbying-for-israeli-billionaire-dan-gertler.html