Δείτε εδώ την ειδική έκδοση

French businessman jailed for 2 years in Guinea mining case

A French businessman who sought to obstruct a US investigation into an alleged bribery scheme to secure multibillion-dollar African mining rights for Israeli billionaire Beny Steinmetz's business empire has been jailed for two years and fined $75,000.

In a New York court on Friday, Frederic Cilins became the first person to receive a criminal sentence in a corruption investigation that centres on a world-class iron-ore deposit beneath a Guinean mountainside and which now spans three continents.

Cilins pleaded guilty in March to one count of obstruction of justice related to a US grand jury investigation into possible corruption and money-laundering in the acquisition of Guinea mining rights.

The judge denied his lawyers' entreaties - backed by 35 letters from the Frenchman's family and friends - that he be sentenced to time served. Cilins was arrested at a Florida airport in April last year following an FBI sting. Prosecutors had asked for a term of between three and four years. Cilins also forfeits the $20,000 he was carrying when arrested.

Experienced in African business, Cilins had worked as an intermediary for BSG Resources, the mining arm of Mr Steinmetz's family conglomerate, when the company began to seek Guinean assets in 2005.

Three years later rights to half of the giant Simandou deposit were stripped from the Anglo-Australian mining house Rio Tinto and awarded to BSGR - but only after bribes were offered to Mamadie Toure, the wife of the then-dictator, according to the conclusions of an inquiry by the current Guinean government, which in April cancelled BSGR's rights.

Prosecutors in the US - where Ms Toure moved following her husband's death - opened a grand jury probe in January last year, according to court filings. Shortly after, they issued her with a subpoena for contracts purporting to lay out the alleged bribery scheme, which involved a company linked to Cilins.

Ms Toure agreed to co-operate with their investigation and wore a wire when Cilins came to see her in Florida. According to published transcripts of the wiretaps, Cilins sought to induce her to destroy the documents, lie to US prosecutors and leave the country. It is for those attempted inducements that he has now been jailed.

BSGR has denied wrongdoing since the Financial Times revealed the corruption allegations in November 2012. It has accused the Guinean government of using "fabricated claims" to seize its assets. The company declined to comment on Cilins' sentence. After the Frenchman's guilty plea in March, the company said: "As we have been saying all along, no one at BSGR has done anything wrong."

Mr Steinmetz, whose interests stretching from diamonds to real estate have made him one of Israel's richest men, is the main financial beneficiary of BSGR, according to court filings. According to the wiretap transcripts, Cilins told Ms Toure that Mr Steinmetz had personally authorised his attempts to persuade her to destroy the documents. Representatives of Mr Steinmetz, who denies wrongdoing, have declined to comment on the transcripts.

No charges have been brought against BSGR and Mr Steinmetz in the US, nor in a parallel probe in Switzerland, where the Israeli tycoon lives.

Guinea's revocation of BSGR's mining rights has triggered a four-way stand-off in the civil courts.

Vale of Brazil, which in 2010 paid an initial $500m under a $2.5bn deal to buy a stake in BSGR's Guinean assets, has filed for arbitration against its erstwhile partner, according to a person familiar with the matter. BSGR has said it is preparing arbitration proceedings against Guinea.

In April, Rio Tinto filed a lawsuit in the US claiming that Vale, BSGR, Mr Steinmetz and others conspired to steal its Simandou rights, costing the company billions of dollars. BSGR and Mr Steinmetz dismissed the allegations; Vale has yet to comment on the lawsuit but stressed that the Guinean inquiry found it had not been complicit in corruption.

© The Financial Times Limited 2014. All rights reserved.
FT and Financial Times are trademarks of the Financial Times Ltd.
Not to be redistributed, copied or modified in any way.
Euro2day.gr is solely responsible for providing this translation and the Financial Times Limited does not accept any liability for the accuracy or quality of the translation

ΣΧΟΛΙΑ ΧΡΗΣΤΩΝ

blog comments powered by Disqus
v