Arnold Ahlert
FrontPage Magazine
11/8/2012
Billionaire financier George Soros has enmeshed himself in a growing bribery scandal in the West African country of Guinea. A government committee backed by Soros is investigating Beny Steinmetz Group Resources (BSGR), the mining component of Israeli billionaire Beny Steinmetz’s business empire. The government is probing how BSRG won rights to develop iron ore mining blocks in the Simandou region of the nation. In turn, the company has accused the government of Guinea of seeking to “illegally seize” its assets…
…the current government insists on investigating bribe allegations against BSGR that consist of offering then-president Conté a gold watch adorned with diamonds, giving a diamond-encrusted, gold miniature Formula One car to a government minister, and claims the company agreed to pay Conté’s fourth wife a $2.5 million commission for helping the group secure mining rights in Guinea. BSGR countered that they were unaware of any gold watch, any payment made to Conté’s wife, and that the miniature car in question was given to the mining ministry, not any individual, and was only worth $1000-2000.
BSGR remains defiant in the face of the probe. ”This is the fifth and most clumsy attempt by an already discredited Government of Guinea in an ongoing campaign to illegally seize BSGR’s assets,” said Asher Avidan, President of BSGR Guinea. “Over the past four years we have invested $160 million of our own money to assess and demonstrate the value of the project; our success in doing so has now attracted rival groups that wish to usurp us by whatever means they can.”
Avidan named names. “Despite repeated investigations by various third parties, financed and backed by George Soros, desperate to uncover a just reason for revoking BSGR’s licenses, all such efforts have merely reconfirmed that there is no case to do so and that the licenses were issued through due legal and transparent processes.”…
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