Beny Steinmetz

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Beny Steinmetz (2016)

Beny Steinmetz (born April 2, 1956 in Netanya ) is an Israeli entrepreneur . He is a diamond dealer and head of the Beny Steinmetz Group Resources (BSGR) .

Life

Steinmetz is the son of the Polish diamond dealer Reuven Steinmetz, who emigrated to Palestine in 1936 . He did his three years of military service and at the age of 21 came to Antwerp , where he worked in the diamond trade. In 1996 he moved back to Israel with his wife Agnes and four children.

With an estimated fortune of 1.24 billion US dollars (as of January 2018) according to Forbes, he is one of the richest Israelis. Steinmetz is also active as a patron in Israel. He moved the family to Geneva in 2010 and also has a French passport.

He is one of the main shareholders of the Canadian mining group Gabriel Resources , which wants to put Europe's largest gold mine into operation in Roșia Montană in Romania, despite environmental concerns and allegations of corruption .

With the financing of the diamond billionaire, the Signa founder René Benko took control of the German department store group Karstadt .

As a diamond dealer and investor in the extraction of natural resources, Steinmetz and his companies are active in more than 25 countries, including Angola and Sierra Leone . In April 2016, Steinmetz's further entrepreneurial activities came to the public through the Panama Papers . According to this, the BSGR received the prospecting rights for iron ore mining in Simandou in Guinea in 2008 . The Rio Tinto Group , which was booted out of the reallocation , sued unsuccessfully. In 2010, the Brazilian company Vale acquired 51% of the rights in Guinea for allegedly 2.5 billion US dollars. Due to corruption in the award process, the rights of the now new government under Alpha Condé were withdrawn from the company BSGR in 2014 .

In September 2014, the BSGR initiated an international arbitration procedure against the Republic of Guinea at the International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes and challenged the government's decision to revoke the mining rights. In February 2019, the BSGR agreed, together with the Guinean President Alpha Condé, to drop the pending arbitration proceedings and all allegations of misconduct [1]. As part of the agreement, BSGR would relinquish its rights to Simandou and maintain an interest in the Zogota deposit, which is to be developed by Niron Metals director Mick Davis. Rio Tinto then filed a lawsuit against Steinmetz, BSGR and Vale, claiming they had worked out a RICO plan to steal "valuable mining rights" owned by Rio Tinto.

Steinmetz then hired former FBI director Louis Freeh , defense attorney Alan Dershowitz, and the law firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom as part of his defense team. In November 2015, Rio Tinto's RICO lawsuit against BSGR was dismissed, with U.S. District Judge Richard Berman ruling that Rio exceeded the statute of limitations on filing its lawsuit against BSGR in 2014 and that the company failed to produce a sample detect blackmail activities by the defendant.

In mid-November 2016, Alan Davies, head of the Rio Tinto department responsible for Simandou, was suspended following an investigation into the legality of Rio Tinto's payment to François de Combret, former managing partner of Lazard and personal advisor to the President of Guinea.

On the morning of August 14, 2017, the Israeli police arrested five people for money laundering in a large-scale raid , among them Beny Steinmetz and Tal Silberstein on suspicion of money laundering in the billions, bribery and forgery . On August 13, 2019, the Geneva public prosecutor Claudio Mascotto brought charges against Steinmetz and two of his alleged accomplices for forgery of documents ( StGB Art. 251). Steinmetz was released with unpunished the following month. The criminal case is being heard at the Geneva Criminal Court because the public prosecutor has requested a prison sentence of between two and ten years.

On March 10, 2016, Steinmetz was indicted in absentia by the Romanian National Anti-Corruption Authority on charges of illegally recovering Paul-Philippe Hohenzollern's inheritance. The court in Romania dismissed the request for an arrest warrant against him. On June 27, 2019 Steinmetz was acquitted of all charges by the Romanian court.

In August 2019, charges were brought by the Geneva public prosecutor's office. Steinmetz and two former employees are accused of transferring bribes to Mamadie Touré - the fourth wife of the former President of Guinea Lansana Conté - in exchange for mining rights to the iron ore deposits on Mount Simandou. The trial began on January 11th, 2021. On January 22nd, 2021 Steinmetz was sentenced by the Geneva Criminal Court to a prison term of five years and a compensation payment of 50 million Swiss francs. The two co-defendants were also found guilty. Steinmetz and his lawyer want to challenge the verdict.

Steinmetz lived in Geneva until 2016 and since then in Israel.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Frederik Obermaier; Bastian Obermayer; Tobias Zick: The widow and Santa Claus , in: Süddeutsche Zeitung , May 28, 2016, p. 13ff.
  2. ↑ Harriet Sherwood: Beny Steinmetz: Israeli diamond dealer likes to keep a low profile. theguardian.com, July 30, 2013, accessed February 10, 2014
  3. ↑ Forbes : Beny Steinmetz . Accessed January 31, 2018.
  4. ↑ Harriet Sherwood: Beny Steinmetz: Israeli diamond dealer likes to keep a low profile. theguardian.com, July 30, 2013, accessed February 10, 2014
  5. ↑ boerse-express.com: Green light for gold mining in Romania ( memento from September 26, 2013 in the Internet Archive ), August 31, 2013
  6. ↑ format.at: [1] , December 3, 2013
  7. ↑ Süddeutsche Zeitung : Karstadt: The hour of the diamond dealer . 22nd of November 2013.
  8. ↑ ARD documentation "The letter box companies of the mighty" from minute 16 , April 6, 2016
  9. ↑ Robert Kappel ; Greed rules , Interview, in: Süddeutsche Zeitung , May 28, 2016, p. 15
  10. ↑ Bloomberg - Are you a robot? Retrieved February 17, 2020 .
  11. ↑ Simon Goodley: Beny Steinmetz settles dispute with Guinea over iron ore project . In: The Guardian . February 25, 2019, ISSN  0261-3077 ( theguardian.com [accessed February 17, 2020]).
  12. ^ Ian Cobain, agencies: Rio Tinto sues Israeli billionaire Beny Steinmetz . In: The Guardian . May 1, 2014, ISSN  0261-3077 ( theguardian.com [accessed February 17, 2020]).
  13. ↑ Ken Silverstein: Louis Freeh's Latest Investigation: Billionaire Businessman Accused of Bribing African Government. In: The Intercept. January 2, 2015, Retrieved February 17, 2020 (American English).
  14. ↑ Bloomberg - Are you a robot? Retrieved February 17, 2020 .
  15. ^ Billionaire Says Rio Probe Proves Elaborate Plot to Strip Prized Guinea Mine Rights. Retrieved February 17, 2020 .
  16. ↑ Chancellor adviser Silberstein arrested in Israel! , oe24 , August 14, 2017.
  17. ↑ Sylvain Besson: Geneva puts billionaire Steinmetz on trial for corruption . In: Tages-Anzeiger . ISSN  1422-9994 ( tagesanzeiger.ch [accessed on August 13, 2019]).
  18. ↑ BSGR sues billionaire George Soros over loss of Guinea iron project . In: Reuters . April 15, 2017 ( reuters.com [accessed February 17, 2020]).
  19. ^ Billionaire Beny Steinmetz released from Israel house arrest . In: Reuters . January 4, 2017 ( reuters.com [accessed February 17, 2020]).
  20. ^ Pouvoir judiciaire - Licenses minières en Guinée: Beny STEINMETZ renvoyé en jugement. Retrieved August 13, 2019 .
  21. ↑ Romanian court refuses Steinmetz arrest warrant - Globes. May 22, 2016, Retrieved February 17, 2020 (Hebrew).
  22. ↑ רומניה: זוכו ​​אנשי העסקים הישראלים שהואשמו בהונאת ענק. June 27, 2019, accessed February 17, 2020 (Hebrew).
  23. ↑ Frederik Obermaier, Isabel Pfaff: Underground shops. In: sueddeutsche.de. January 11, 2021, accessed January 11, 2021 .
  24. ↑ a b Andreas Stüdli: Trial against Beny Steinmetz - Influential commodity trader in court - that's what it's about. In: Swiss radio and television . January 11, 2021, accessed January 11, 2021 .
  25. ↑ Corruption: mining king and billionaire stonemason in court. In: orf.at. January 11, 2021, accessed January 11, 2021 .
  26. ^ Trial against Beny Steinmetz - Harsh verdict against French-Israeli commodity traders. In: srf.ch. January 22, 2021, accessed January 23, 2021 .
personal data
SURNAME Steinmetz, Beny
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Steinmetz, Benny
SHORT DESCRIPTION Israeli entrepreneur
DATE OF BIRTH April 2, 1956
PLACE OF BIRTH Netanya