Corruption in Congo: Development in the British investigation against billionaire Dan Gertler

October 5, 2022   

Development in the investigation into suspected corruption and fraud in Congo by companies linked to ultra-Orthodox billionaire Dan Gertler of Bnei Brak. According to a report by Tomer Gannon in Calcalist, the Federal Court in Geneva recently ordered the local prosecutor's office to hand over to the British Financial Fraud Office (SFO) information related to bank accounts of companies and an individual linked to Gertler. The information was requested by the British, according to the ruling, following "an investigation into corruption and fraud in connection with the purchase of mining assets in the Democratic Republic of Congo." The GothamCity website - a weekly online magazine published in Switzerland and France on economic crime - announced this evening (Wednesday) that the British investigation relates to the purchase of mining assets by Gertler in 2010, through the Kazakh company Eurasiaan Natural Resources Corporation (ENRC), which is registered in London. The Kazakh company is suspected of paying millions of dollars in bribes through Gertler - allegations that the Israeli businessman denies. The SFO has been investigating these allegations since 2012. In a previous affidavit filed by Gertler as part of an arbitration over mining assets in Congo with the Gertner brothers, he detailed how his Congolese business manager, Peter de Bot, was detained at Brussels airport in March 2017 by SFO investigators and Belgian police as part of the investigation. De Bot, according to Gertler's affidavit, was questioned about various payments in Congo. It should be noted that the US imposed sanctions on the three Congolese companies that the Swiss will now transfer information about in 2018, after the US Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) determined that they had ties to Gertler, and decided to freeze their assets in the US in accordance with a section related to serious crimes of corruption and human rights violations. Calcalist noted that Gertler's response could not be obtained due to the holiday.