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.

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”.

Glencore, Human Rights, Gertler, Sanctions, the DRC and The Global Magnitsky Act’s Non-Enforcement

Photograph Credit: Transparency International

Who Oversees Enforcement of The Magnitsky Act and Dan Gertler’s Payments from Glencore Belie Enforcement

DISCLAIMER: The below Euractiv.com piece is an Opinion Post, republished in part without the permission of the author or the Euractiv.com Ltd. company and/or their website.

We are re-posting with links to the original.

This current interest comes at the heals of recent violence in the DRC: “The Congolese army has arrived at Glencore’s largest copper and cobalt mine following the deaths of over 40 informal miners on the site.” (The Financial Times) “The latest tragedy struck at a site owned by Kamoto Copper Company, a subsidiary of FTSE 100 giant Glencore. The company has reported incursions of up to 2,000 people a day on its giant mining concession, which, at 5,200 acres, is difficult to secure.” (The Telegraph)

For the purposes of the Global Magnitsky Act in the US, it is unclear within the context of the United States enforcement mechanisms who enforces the Global Magnitsky Act within the branches of US Government. The Sanctions against Dan Gertler, a former partner of Glencore, were issued by the Department of Treasury and Foreign Assets (OFAC); but Glencore’s announcements in 2018 that it would pay Gertler in a currency other than US Dollars to avoid triggering the sanctions or asset seizures was announced with a measure of glee in 2018. It would seem, therefore that even though the US has enacted the Global Magnitsky Act it lacks teeth or in the alternative, those with teeth are easily bought.

“Glencore said it believed payment of the royalties in a currency other than U.S. dollars to Africa Horizons Investments Limited and Ventora without the involvement of U.S. entities would address applicable sanctions obligations. It added it had discussed the matter “with the appropriate U.S. and Swiss government agencies”. [Reuters]

Based upon Glencore’s own comments, it would appear that they colluded with US and Swiss government agencies to avoid compliance, or rather to find loopholes in which payment would comply. Either way, this means that Gertler continues to get wealthier off the backs of the Congolese people and The Magnitsky Sanctions, intended to prevent exploitation of human rights are meaningless.

We believe that there is a connection to Gertler with high ranking officials in the United States government or with people who have the ear of US officials and with that, a means of guaranteeing that those who would be overseeing the sanctions simply look the other way.

We take the general position that the are no coincidences, everything is political and nearly everyone has a price. 

Merlin Can’t Possibly Possess Enough Magic for Gutnick’s Great Escape, ASIC Turns Up Heat On Diamond Company

ASIC liquidator push turns up the heat on Diamond Joe Gutnick

Australia’s corporate watchdog has sought Federal Court approval to wind up Joseph Gutnick’s publicly-listed company, Merlin Diamonds, and flagged an inquiry into whether the colourful Melbourne businessman has breached his director’s duties.

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission’s (ASIC) move against the man known as “Diamond Joe” due to his appetite for outback diamond and gold deposits confirms the worst fears of Merlin Diamonds’ shareholders, who have already endured a seven-month trading ban on the company’s stock.

Joe Gutnick. CREDIT:JOHN WOUDSTRA

Court filings released to The Age and Sydney Morning Herald on Tuesday show ASIC is seeking an order to appoint Deloitte as liquidators of Merlin Diamonds, which had a market capitalisation of just $20 million when its stock was banned from trading last October.

ASIC has for months been probing how Merlin Diamonds has loaned $13 million of investor money to a private company, AXIS Consultants, which has long been associated with Mr Gutnick.

“The loans have been used to fund private companies associated with Joseph Gutnick and provide no discernible benefit to Merlin Diamonds,” ASIC said in a statement on Tuesday evening.

In one example cited by ASIC, it alleges Merlin Diamonds in October 2016 received $900,000 from a Mr Gutnick-linked company, Chabad Properties, for convertible notes and options issued to Chabad.

“The ultimate source of the $900,000 paid by Chabad, through a series of transactions involving related companies, was Merlin Diamonds. Mr Gutnick is a former director of Chabad,” ASIC’s media statement revealed.

Mr Gutnick, who resumed the chairmanship of Merlin Diamonds after emerging from a self-imposed bankruptcy last year, and his wife, Stera Gutnick, are also named in the ASIC’s court filing to wind up Merlin Diamonds. Mrs Gutnick is not a director of Merlin Diamonds and is not understood to be personally under investigation.

ASIC has asked the liquidators to examine and provide an opinion on whether Mr Gutnick and other past and present Merlin Diamonds directors and officers, have breached the Corporations Act.

To Continue reading click here.

Merlin Diamonds, Not So Magical Now – ASIC Move to Liquidate Company – Follow the Money…

ASIC media releases are point-in-time statements. Please note the date of issue and use the internal search function on the site to check for other media releases on the same or related matters.

Tuesday 14 May 2019

19-113MR ASIC moves to appoint provisional liquidator to Merlin Diamonds Ltd

ASIC has applied to the Federal Court of Australia to wind up ASX-listed public company Merlin Diamonds Limited (ACN 009 153 119) (Merlin Diamonds) and for the appointment of provisional liquidators to report to the court pending hearing of its application for final relief.

The application arises from ASIC’s concerns which include:

• since 2012, Merlin Diamonds has advanced substantial funds to Axis Consultants Pty Ltd (Axis), a related management services company, without shareholder approval ($13,752,124 owing as at 30 June 2018) (Loans);

• the Loans have been used to fund private companies associated with Mr Joseph Gutnick (a current and former director of Merlin Diamonds and Axis respectively) and provide no discernible benefit to Merlin Diamonds;

• the terms of the Loans appear to be unreasonable, uncommercial and non-arm’s length. No security for the Loans has been provided by Axis or any third party and the Loans are being fully provisioned (impairment provision) each financial year;

• the Merlin Diamonds auditors have been unable to obtain sufficient appropriate audit evidence to be satisfied that Axis is likely to be able to repay the Loans;

• in October 2016 Merlin Diamonds received $900,000 from Chabad Properties Pty Ltd (Chabad) for convertible notes and options issued to Chabad. The ultimate source of the $900,000 paid by Chabad, through a series of transactions involving related companies, was Merlin Diamonds. Mr Gutnick is a former director of Chabad;

• audited accounts of Merlin Diamonds for the half-year ended 31 December 2018 (due 18 March 2019) have not been lodged with ASIC, a contravention of s320 of the Corporations Act;

• the financial position of Merlin Diamonds as at 30 June 2018 raises concerns over the company’s solvency;

• there has been no company secretary of Merlin Diamonds since 8 January 2019, a contravention of s204A(2) of the Corporations Act; and 

• corporate governance of Merlin Diamonds falls far short of the standard expected of an ASX-listed public company.

ASIC seeks from the Court:

• the appointment of Mr Salvatore Algeri and Mr Timothy Norman, of Deloitte Financial Advisory Pty Ltd as joint and several provisional      liquidators of the company; and

• orders requiring the provisional liquidators to provide a detailed report to the Court that sets out, among other things:

  • the way in which Merlin Diamonds has made the Loans;

  • the recoverability of the Loans from Axis;

  • the $900,000 transaction involving Chabad; and

  • the financial position of Merlin Diamonds

• for the Court’s consideration at a later date, orders to wind up the company and appointing Mr Algeri and Mr Norman as liquidators.

ASIC’s application will be heard in the Federal Court of Australia at Melbourne on a date to be fixed.

ASIC’s investigation into the affairs of Merlin Diamonds is continuing.

Background

Merlin Diamonds, a Melbourne-based company listed on ASX, engages in the exploration and development of diamond mining projects. Its flagship project is the Merlin diamond mine in the Northern Territory.

Merlin Diamond’s shares have been suspended from trading since 1 October 2018. Merlin Diamonds has 3.3 billion ordinary shares issued, and last traded at $0.006 per share – resulting in a market capitalisation of approximately $20 million.

Editor’s note:

The matter was listed for the first case management hearing on 4 June 2019 in the Federal Court, Melbourne.

Zambian Court Orders Liquidation of Leviev Company – Frango Finance Ltd. and Gemcanton Investments Holdings

Zambia Court Orders Liquidation of Billionaire Leviev’s Company

A Zambian court has ordered the liquidation of a company owned by Israeli diamond billionaire Lev Leviev as the fight with his local partner in an emerald mine rages on.

The Zambian High Court placed Frango Finance Ltd., which owns half of Gemcanton Investments Holdings, in compulsory liquidation after receiving a petition on Feb. 18, according to a statement published in the Daily Nation newspaper.

Lev Leviev

Photographer: Scott Wintrow/Getty Images

Leviev will contest the order, said his lawyer, Dickson Jere. “We have been served with an order which was issued without hearing my client,” he said in a text message. “We will be going to challenge it in court as Frango is not even a Zambian-registered company.”

Leviev and Abdoulaye Ndiaye became embroiled in legal battles soon after the diamond magnate bought half of what was previously known as the Grizzly emerald mine from Ndiaye in Zambia’s Copperbelt province in 2015.

More Dan Gertler and Glencore – WSJ

LostMessiah – The Gertler, Fleurette, Katumba, Glencore…. Reported Long Ago

To our faithful readers and to the journalists and law enforcement who read our pages: 

We uncovered the abuses portrayed long ago. For a look into our investigations into Dan Gertler, Fleurette,  the death of Katumba, Glencore, the various violations and other unsavory practices, please go into our search bar and search the names. We reported about these issues nearly 2 years ago.

LM

Glencore-Controlled Miner to Be Fined by Canadian Authorities Over Congo Ops

Regulator expected to allege Katanga Mining hid risks of doing business with Israeli diamond merchant closely linked to Congolese President Joseph Kabila

A Glencore GLNCY -3.44% PLC-controlled mining company and some of its current and former directors and executives have agreed to pay more than $22 million to settle Canadian allegations that they hid the risks of doing business with a controversial Israeli businessman closely linked to Congolese President Joseph Kabila, according to a person familiar with the matter.

The expected settlement between the Ontario Securities Commission, Canada’s biggest stock-market regulator, and Toronto-listed Katanga Mining Ltd. KAT -1.56% is related to the company’s business activities in Congo between 2014 and 2016, the person said.

The regulator is expected to name several of Katanga’s current and former executives and directors in the settlement and will focus, at least in part, on Katanga’s longstanding ties with Dan Gertler, the Israeli businessman who first invested in Katanga alongside Glencore in 2008, the person said.

The OSC is also expected to allege that Katanga lacked proper internal financial controls, leading it to overstate copper production and understate mining costs, potentially inflating the miner’s performance, according to the person familiar with the matter.

Glencore owns about 86% of Katanga. In 2017, Glencore purchased Mr. Gertler’s stakes in Katanga and another giant copper mine in Congo.

The settlement is expected to name Glencore’s former representatives on Katanga’s board, according to this person. Those individuals include Aristotelis Mistakidis, one of Glencore’s most senior executives and two other Glencore executives, Liam Gallagher and Tim Henderson. All three stepped down from the board in November 2017 after Glencore and Katanga confirmed the Canadian investigation. The probe was first reported by The Wall Street Journal.

Katanga said at the time it was shuffling the board to address weaknesses in its controls over financial reporting. Earlier this month, Glencore said Mr. Mistakidis would retire at year-end.

Katanga and the named individuals have agreed to jointly pay a fine of more than 30 million Canadian dollars ($22 million) to settle the allegations, according to the person.

The people named in the OSC settlement will be banned for certain periods of time from acting as a director or officer of a publicly traded company listed in Ontario, the person said.

The settlement is expected to be announced as early as this week. A panel of the OSC must approve any settlement agreement at a public hearing for it to take effect.

It’s unclear whether Katanga and the individuals admit to wrongdoing in the settlement.

Katanga Chief Executive Johnny Blizzard has also agreed to resign as part of the settlement, the person said.

READ MORE

• Probe Into Glencore Copper Business Nears Settlement (Dec. 3)
• U.S. Probes Ties Between Glencore, Diamond Merchant Under Sanction (July 5)
• Glencore Shares Tumble After U.S. Subpoena (July 3)
• Glencore Upends Board of Congo Unit Amid Probe (Nov. 20, 2017)
• Glencore Under Probe Over Congo Payments (July 27, 2017)

Katanga’s settlement represents another reputational hit for Glencore and its operations in Africa. In July, the London-listed mining giant said it had received a subpoena from the U.S. Justice Department demanding records related to its compliance with American antibribery and money-laundering laws in Congo, Nigeria and Venezuela.

The Wall Street Journal reported that a focus of the probe is Glencore’s ties to Mr. Gertler.

Mr. Gertler in recent years has become a lightning rod for controversy. In 2016, he was a central figure in a $412 million settlement between the U.S. Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission with New York hedge fund Och-Ziff Capital Management Group LLC. A businessman people familiar with the matter said is Mr. Gertler paid more than $100 million in bribes to Congolese government officials, including Mr. Kabila, to get beneficial terms for deals in the Central African country, the DOJ and SEC alleged.

A spokesman for Fleurette Group, Mr. Gertler’s main company in Congo, said it “has always acted appropriately and with integrity in the DRC. Nothing has ever been proven against the company or its executives in a court of law.”

A year ago the U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned Mr. Gertler, alleging he traded on a friendship with Mr. Kabila to amass a fortune through “opaque and corrupt” deals on behalf of multinational companies seeking to do business in Congo. Mr. Gertler has denied wrongdoing and has declined to comment on the Treasury allegations and Justice Department investigation.

The OSC is expected to allege that Katanga breached Canadian securities law by not disclosing the risks it faced by relying on Mr. Gertler to maintain relationships with Mr. Kabila, Congo’s president, according to the person familiar with the matter.

To continue reading click here.