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Paradise Papers: US puts sanctions on billionaire over dealings in DRC
Key Excerpts from Article on Website of The Guardian (One of the UK's leading newspapers)
Posted: December 31st, 2017
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/dec/22/paradise-papers...
The US government has imposed sanctions on the Israeli billionaire Dan Gertler, whose African business dealings were exposed in the Paradise Papers, over hundreds of millions of dollars worth of opaque and corrupt mining and oil deals in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. In a strongly worded statement, the US president ... placed sanctions on 13 people and companies associated with them, declaring a state of national emergency with respect to serious human rights abuse and corruption around the world. In November, the Paradise Papers investigation unveiled new details of Gertlers mining deals in strife-torn but resource-rich DRC, in particular over a $45m loan in shares to one of his companies from the worlds biggest miner, Glencore. In imposing sanctions on Gertler, the US Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) said the Israeli billionaires corrupt dealings had deprived the state coffers of DRC of ... more than $1.36bn in revenues from the underpricing of mining assets that were sold to offshore companies linked to Gertler. Gertlers involvement in the DRC spans nearly two decades. He was cited by a 2001 UN investigation that said he had given the DRCs then-president $20m to buy weapons to equip his army against rebel groups in exchange for a monopoly on the countrys diamonds, and a 2013 Africa Progress Panel report said a string of mining deals struck by companies linked to him had deprived the country of more than $1.3bn in potential revenue.
Note: Gertler had close ties with Mark Rich, who was once on the FBI's 10 most wanted list only to later be pardoned by Bill Clinton. This revealing article on Gertler in the UK's Guardian shows corruption and abuse leading to very high places. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on corruption in government and in the corporate world.
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