A mining company run by Glencore PLC in the Democratic Republic of Congo made millions of dollars in undisclosed payments to a company owned by an Israeli businessman accused by U.S. authorities of paying more than $100 million in bribes to Congolese officials.
The firm of businessman Dan Gertler has received payments meant for Congo’s state-run mining company, Gecamines, according to Glencore and Mr. Gertler’s holding company Fleurette Group.
Details of the payments, which hadn’t previously been disclosed by Glencore, Fleurette or Gecamines, were first cited in a Tuesday report by Global Witness, a London-based anticorruption nonprofit that often targets mining and oil companies’ practices. Global Witness said its findings are based on documents detailing the payments, which mirror financial records from 2014 that have been reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.
The payments are fresh evidence of financial ties between Switzerland-based Glencore, one of the biggest publicly traded mining companies in the world, and Mr. Gertler, who is the subject of a U.S. Justice Department investigation, according to people familiar with the matter. Mr. Gertler has repeatedly denied paying bribes.
Under a deal with the Congolese government, Gecamines is allocated a slice of annual sales from a mining company known as KCC, short for Kamoto Copper Co., Fleurette said. KCC is majority-owned by Katanga Mining, which in turn is owned by both Glencore and Fleurette. According to the companies and the documents seen by the Journal, the royalty payments were instead diverted to a Cayman Islands company called Africa Horizons Investment Ltd., which Fleurette owns.
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