From/via the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, October 26:
The US Department of Justice is seeking documents from the world’s
largest commodities trader, Glencore, over intermediary companies that
it uses in Venezuela, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Nigeria,
Reuters reported on Tuesday.
Shortly after, the metals giant posted
a 12 percent rise in copper production and a 44 percent rise in cobalt
production, all from a restart of its processing operations at the
Katanga mine in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
The US has been investigating Glencore’s operations over
allegations that its operations in Venezuela, the Democratic Republic of
the Congo and Nigeria bribed energy officials and engaged in corrupt
practices.
“The investigation focuses on intermediaries,” said an
unnamed source to Reuters. Another source said the Department of Justice
was focusing on three intermediary firms that work with Glencore.
Glencore, an Anglo-Swiss company, has a decades-long history of corruption, which include allegations that it paid millions of dollars in illegal kickbacks to Saddam Hussein’s regime.
The recent US investigation focuses on violations of the
Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and money laundering laws. In Nigeria, it
centers on Glencore’s ties to associates of the country’s former oil
minister Diezani Alison-Madueke.
These associates own Atlantic Energy Holdings, a
Nigeria-based company whose subsidiary sold Glencore bought oil. They
are alleged to have laundered money and bribed Nigeria’s oil minister.
Meanwhile, in Congo, US authorities are looking for
information on Israeli businessman Dan Gertler, a partner in Glencore’s
cobalt and copper mines until 2017....
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