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.
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
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
- 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.
LOSTMESSIAH 