U.S. Sanctions Israeli Billionaire Gertler Over Congo Deals
- U.S. authorities say Gertler amassed fortune in corrupt deals
- Gertler had been a close partner with Glencore in Congo
Israeli billionaire Dan Gertler looks across the open pit mining operations at Comide SPRL's Mashitu copper mine in Katanga province, Democratic Republic of Congo, on Aug. 1, 2012.
Photographer: Simon Dawson/Bloomberg
The U.S. sanctioned Israeli billionaire Dan Gertler, one of the biggest individual mining investors in the Democratic Republic of Congo, in what it calls a clampdown on human-rights abusers and corrupt actors.
The U.S. Treasury said Gertler has used his close relationship with the country’s president, Joseph Kabila, to amass a fortune through corrupt and opaque deals. Between 2010 and 2012 alone, Congo reportedly lost over $1.36 billion in revenues from the underpricing of mining assets that were sold to offshore companies linked to Gertler, it said.