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Undermining Sanctions global witness P UNDERMINING SANCTIONS Evidence suggests scandal- hit billionaire Dan Gertler is trying to dodge US sanctions using a suspected money laundering network 2 July 2020 000 $ $ $ $ $ On 8 March 2018, a manwalks into friends, and crush his enemies, Gertler's mining a nondescriptbank on Boulevard30 deals have drawnthe interestof investigators and prosecutors around the world . For his former Juin, a congestedand chaotic artery business partners in DRC, Gertler has morphed runningthrough the heart of from lucky charm into Achilles heel. Various Kinshasa , the sprawling capital of multinationalcompanies, such as Glencore, Och DemocraticRepublic of Congo (DRC). He has come to Afriland First Bank Ziff and Eurasian Natural Resources Corporation to make a deposit: $6 million, over ( ENRC) , who have all worked with Gertler in DRC, have faced or are facing investigations by three separate cash deposits, into American , Swiss and British law enforcement the account of an obscure company bodies into their Congolese deals.3 he had set up less than two months earlier On 21 December 2017 - just a few months before Abihassira found himself delivering millions in The company appears to be a sham, and the cash to a Kinshasa bank - wheeling and provenance of the $6 million deposited at dealingfinally caughtup with him: he was AfrilandBankthat day is unclear.The money sits sanctionedby the USfor hundredsof millionsof inthe companyaccountfor several months, but dollars' worth of opaque andcorrupt miningand is latersent on a circuitousjourney via a oil deals” in DRC.4 Congolesemiddlemanand anothersuspicious Overnight, Gertler, 18 of his companies, his family company, before some ofthe money is funneled foundation and any other company he owns a abroad . majorityof shares in, alongwith his right- hand This man is not typicalof the clienteleof man, Pieter Deboutte, were locked out of the US Kinshasa's banks . The bank recorded his name as economy and US individuals and companies were Shlomo Abihassira (sometimes spelled prohibited from doing business with them..5 Abuhatzeira in news reports), and he is the son Gertler's reputation internationally was already of a famous and wealthy Israeli rabbi. does tarnished after years of public reporting on his not seem to have any obvious reason to be in DRC suspect deals, and now his freedom to do depositing large sums of cash in person . Yet he business was heavily constrained by the US does have one connection to the country , and it sanctions . For an international businessman , this holds the key to explaining his activities at ought to have been a financial death sentence . Afriland Bank that day. But in DRC, Gertlerwas still king.Whenthe US Abihassirais an oldfamily friend of DanGertler, a sanctionswere announcedin December2017, miningmagnatewho spent two decadesas a Gertler'sally PresidentKabilawas still in power, dominantforce in DRC'slucrativeminingsector. and would remain so for another 12 months. Gertler leveragedhis friendship with Joseph Kabila'salmosttwo decade longreignas Kabila, presidentof DRC from 2001to 2019,to presidentwas characterisedby corruption and facilitategiantWestern miningcorporations' nepotism. The country's public institutions under access to the Congolese natural resource sector , Kabila were opaque and hamstrung by powerful and to make himself a huge fortune along the officials routinely abusing their public office for way. private gain. This offered an opportunityfor Gertler to find a way out ofhis impasse he was in However, controversy has dogged Gertler at a position to exploit the loopholes and weak every step . Accused of paying bribes to maintain his position in DRC's mining sector , help his GLOBALWITNESSJULY 2020 UnderminingSanctions 1 governance in DRC's banks, corporate registries criminalcharges broughtagainstGertlerby the and mining sector to become a sanctions -buster. US orany other state. Within a week of his designation as a sanctioned Kabila's decision to finally step down in early individual, Gertler was busy reorganising his 201911 paved the way for the country's first business empire. His galaxy of offshore peacefultransitionof powersinceits companies, based in tax havenslike the British independencein 1960.12Yetthe electionswere Virgin Islands(BVI), were either redomiciledto marred by irregularitiesand rumoursthat new DRC or replacedwith new Congolesecompanies. PresidentFélix Tshisekedihad struck a dealwith Around the sametime the end of 2017 new Kabila,who retainedcontroland influenceover companies, with subtleand detectablebut, manyof DRC'sinstitutions. 13 14 It is unclear unsurprisingly, no overt connectionsto Gertler, whetherthe continuationof Kabila's influence beganto sproutup on corporate registries. allowed his old friendGertlerto continueto operate freely in DRC. At least two of these new companies, without any pedigree in miningor DRC, even went on to What follows is an account of the evidence secure rights to DRC mining permits at what may suggestingthat this controversial billionaire may have been a knock-down price, just ahead of the now have access to a network of shell companies, December2018 elections. These activities frontmen, and proxy bank accounts to move echoed the pattern of Gertler's previous deal- millions of dollars in and out of DRC, fund making, where miningrights sold bythe state business there, and evade US sanctions. The were picked up by him at below market ratesjust details shine a light on how Gertler's complex ahead of the 2011elections and latersold on at a business empire is likelyto function post huge profit, which he pocketed.10 sanctions , and reveal a system well able to conceal the origin of the enormous sums of Gertler and the other individuals and companies money passing through it. This is how, despite about whom Global Witness and the Platform to being sanctioned , Gertler appears to have Protect Whistleblowers in Africa (PPLAAF) have continued reaping the vast financial benefits of found evidence suggesting concerted efforts to his business activity in DRC a country where sidestep sanctions , have each strenuously denied over 72 percent of the population lives on less any such endeavour . There has not been, they than $ 1.90 a This complex web draws in say, any attempt or conspiracy to evade huge firms like commodities giant Glencore , and sanctions : there is no money laundering scheme mining companiessuch as Eurasian Resources - Global Witness and PPLAAF's suspicions were Group ( ERG) and Sino-Congolaise des Mines said to be ridiculous ' and , whatever has been ( Sicomines)—alldeny doing business with Gertler uncoveredhas legitimate business explanations, in violation of US sanctions , or any other and Gertler is certainly not connected with it. wrongdoing . It also encompasses one of Abihassira , they said , was no cash mule for Francophone Africa's largest banks and its Gertler nor in DRC when deposits appear to have correspondent banks abroad. been made by him, but raisingfundsfor Kinshasa real estate investments, for example . Since they In summary, what emerges is an apparent were first made some years ago, Gertler and scheme to laundervast sums of money in and out Kabila representativeshave also continuously of DRC, allowingGertlerto evade the effects of US denied the historic accusationsof bribery. sanctions. As such, it reveals critical loopholes Sanctions may be in place but there have been no and lapses in sanctions enforcement and the international financial system at large. GLOBALWITNESSJULY 2020 UnderminingSanctions 2 Dan Gertleris an Israelibillionairewho was sanctionedby the UnitedStatesin December2017 for opaqueand corruptminingdeals” in DRC. Global Witness has been investigating Gertler since / 2011. We have exposed how he acted as a Image Dawson gatekeeper for oil and mining assets in DRC, Getty requiring large multinational companies to go SimonBloomberg via through him to do business with the Congolese State and pocketingvast profits in the process. (Simon Dawson / Bloomberg via Getty Images) Dan Gertler Alain Mukonda is a Congolese businessmanand associate of Dan Gertler. After the sanctions against Gertler, Mukonda Mukonda redomiciled sanctioned entities and established ten new companies , all of which ultimately belong to Alain/ Gertler family . Facebook He also made 16 cash deposits with a total value of €11 million into the bank accounts of these companies . (Facebook / Alain Mukonda ) Alain Mukonda Shlomo Abihassira is the son of a famous Israeli rabbi and a family friend of Dan Gertler. Just after Gertler was sanctioned, Abihassira established a company in DRC despite having no experience in the country, and made cash deposits of $ 19 million into the company'saccountwithin a few http://shturem.net/ months. The cash wasthen all withdrawn in one go by an unknown individual, and deposited into the account of another company belongingto Elie Shlomo Abihassira Yohann Berros.(http://shturem.net/ Elie-Yohann Berros is a French national. Following the sanctionsagainst Gertler, Berros incorporated a company with the exact same name as one of Gertler's companies. He also incorporated two other companies in DRC: gram one of them was the recipient of Abihassira's 19 million cash and funnelled some of it abroad; the other one picked up a valuable mining licence in DRC's rich Copperbelt,just a few months before the Elie - Yohann Berros 2018 Congolese elections. Berros is a business associate of Avi Ben Ezra . (Instagram / elieberros) GLOBAL WITNESS JULY 2020 UnderminingSanctions
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