The whistleblowers, Navy Malela and Gradi Koko, worked for several years in the Afriland First Bank
Israeli businessman Dan Gertler allegedly established a “money laundering network” designed to evade United States sanctions against him. He also was accused of using the network to “acquire new mining assets” in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
On February 26, two Congolese whistleblowers identified
themselves as the source of these and other disclosures involving Afriland
First Bank.
“The whistleblowers, Navy Malela and Gradi Koko, worked for
several years in the audit department of Afriland First Bank, the Congolese
subsidiary of a Cameroonian bank,” the Platform to Protect Whistleblowers
(PPLAAF) in Africa declared. “They blew the whistle internally then transmitted
these compromising documents to NGOs and journalists at great risk to their
personal safety and that of their families.”
“One of them was seriously threatened, and they had no
choice but to go into exile in Europe,” PPLAAF added.
There are unconfirmed reports that troublingly suggest a
Kinshasa court issued a death sentence against the former bank employees.
Malela responded, “It would be incredible if whistleblowers
are being sentenced to death without having the opportunity to defend
themselves, while those who enable the Congolese people’s money to disappear
are not being prosecuted.”
According to PPLAAF, Afriland not only was aware of this
corruption but were also participants.
“After being alerted by these two employees to some of these
internal irregularities, Afriland’s management responded by implying one of the
whistleblowers could get shot in the street, according to one of them.”
Koko and Malela provided information that was published in
“Undermining Sanctions” in July 2020 by PPLAAF and Global Witness. Bloomberg,
Haaretz, and Le Monde covered the revelations.
The publication fueled international pressure against
Gertler, but in February, the New York Times revealed President Donald Trump’s
administration exempted Gertler from sanctions during their final days in
office.
Rolling back sanctions at the Treasury Department with no
public documentation to justify the move—and without consulting officials at
the State Department or National Security Council—flouted standard procedure,
according to the Times.
Treasury officials asserted Gertler was granted a “special
license” until 2022 because the U.S. had a “national security interest” in his
Africa dealings, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other
prominent Israelis backed the pressure campaign to remove sanctions.
No details were shared to prove it was in the interests of
“national security” to allow a corrupt businessman to continue his exploitation
of the Congolese people free from interference by the U.S. government.
When the Treasury Department sanctioned Gertler in June
2018, officials accused him of amassing a fortune “through hundreds of millions
of dollars’ worth of opaque and corrupt mining and oil deals in the DRC.”
“Gertler has used his close friendship with DRC President
Joseph Kabila to act as a middleman for mining asset sales in the DRC,
requiring some multinational companies to go through Gertler to do business
with the Congolese state,” the Treasury Department stated in a press release.
“As a result, between 2010 and 2012 alone, the DRC reportedly lost over $1.36
billion in revenues from the underpricing of mining assets that were sold to
offshore companies linked to Gertler.”
“The failure of the DRC to publish the full details of one
of the sales prompted the International Monetary Fund to halt loans to the DRC
totaling $225 million.”
“In 2013, Gertler sold to the DRC government for $150
million the rights to an oil block that Gertler purchased from the government
for just $500,000, a loss of $149.5 million in potential revenue,” the Treasury
Department further outlined. “Gertler has acted for or on behalf of Kabila,
helping Kabila organize offshore leasing companies.”
Gertler has been involved in the “conflict diamond” or
“blood diamond” trade in the Congo, and he was only 23 years old in 1997 when
he arrived to establish himself as a diamond supplier that could compete with
De Beers, a diamond business rooted in the British colonial past of South
Africa.
During his presidency, Laurent Kabila offered monopolies to
businessmen like Gertler to help his government make war.
“Among them was a deal to export diamonds with Mr. Gertler,
who was considered an appealing intermediary because of his ties to generals in
the Israeli Army that could help Congo procure weapons, according to two
reports issued by the United Nations in 2001,” the Times recalled.
Gertler negotiated a peace deal in 2003 while President
George W. Bush was in office, and that helped him “cement” a relationship with
Kabila that allowed for the expansion of his “empire of companies” into the
mining of copper, cobalt, gas, gold, and oil.
“In just five deals negotiated between 2010 and 2012 to sell
copper and cobalt through offshore companies linked to the Fleurette Group,
which is controlled by Mr. Gertler and his family, the citizens of Congo lost
an estimated $1.36 billion because the nation’s resources were being sold at
one-sixth of their value, according to a report prepared in 2013 by Kofi Annan,
the former U.N. secretary general, and other prominent African officials.”
Malela and Koko, the former Afriland First Bank employees,
took great risks to further expose this 21st Century colonialism.
Gertler, as the PPLAAF and Global Witness report alleged,
relied on Afriland after sanctions were imposed in 2018 to obscure transactions
so he could continue “customs and logistics” operations for “large mining
companies in DRC.”
Three U.S. representatives in Congress sent a letter [PDF]
to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on February 3 urging her to restore the
sanctions against Gertler.
“The licensing action appears to have almost entirely
bypassed established interagency processes,” the letter stated. “No information
has been provided by the Treasury Department to indicate that the Magnitsky
Sanctions were wrongly implemented in the first place, nor are there any
indications that Mr. Gertler has demonstrated contrition for his corrupt
dealings and undertaken reform.”
The letter added, “In fact, the publicly available evidence
demonstrates the opposite is true. Since being sanctioned, he has created shell
companies, opened accounts with tiny financial institutions in the DRC over
which he maintains control, and received pay in foreign currencies to
circumvent our laws.”
Congo is one of the most resource-rich countries in the
world, yet as of 2018, over 70 percent of the country lived in “extreme
poverty.”
“Thanks to the silent revolution of whistleblowers like
Gradi and Navy on the African continent, no crime will remain a secret forever,
and the change we desire will eventually make itself felt,” proclaimed
Jean-Jacques Lumumba, who is a Congolese whistleblower and banker. “Acts like
theirs are a source of hope for the DRC and for our continent.”
“Once again, whistleblowers are risking their lives to
combat opacity and defend banking regulations,”Gabriel Bourdon-Fattal of PPLAAF
concluded. “We call on the Congolese authorities to launch investigations into
these acts and on President [Félix] Tshisekedi to promote mechanisms to protect
whistleblowers, as he recently announced.”
Comments
Post a Comment