Israeli billionaire settles DRC graft probe

A former holding company of US-sanctioned Israeli billionaire Dan Gertler will pay €25.8m to settle a Dutch corruption probe over mining deals in the DRC, prosecutors have said, according to News24. In 2018, Dutch investigators had launched a probe into whether Fleurette, a Netherlands-registered firm that served as the holding company for the Gertler group, and Swiss commodities giant Glencore paid bribes to secure copper and cobalt mining rights at below-market prices. Investigators suspected that tens of millions of US dollars were paid to a top adviser of ex-President Joseph Kabila, a close friend of Gertler who ruled the mineral-rich yet conflict-plagued country from 2001 to 2019. The Dutch prosecutor's office said it had issued Fleurette with a fine of 25.8m euros on 6 March. ‘By accepting this criminal settlement, the Public Prosecutor establishes that Fleurette, acting in concert with others, is guilty of bribing foreign public officials in the DRC in connection with the acquisition of mining licences,’ the office said. Dutch investigators had already dropped their probe into Glencore, which acted as Gertler's business partner in the DRC, after the Swiss commodities giant agreed to pay a fine to settle a separate graft investigation in Switzerland. Lawyers for Fleurette told AFP that the fine brings the investigation to a close and that the Dutch authorities have confirmed they will not bring any charges against Gertler himself. The Israeli businessman, who spent nearly 20 years acting as a go-between on some of the largest deals struck in the DRC's notoriously corruption-riddled mining sector, has always denied any suggestion of graft or underhand wheeler-dealing.