Blacklisted Israeli tycoon's firm settles DR Congo graft probe for $30 million

A former holding company of US-sanctioned Israeli billionaire Dan Gertler will pay $30 million to settle a Dutch corruption probe over mining deals in the Democratic Republic of Congo, prosecutors said on Tuesday.

In 2018, Dutch investigators had launched a probe into whether Fleurette, a Netherlands-registered firm that served as the holding company for the Gertler group, and Swiss commodities giant Glencore paid bribes to secure copper and cobalt mining rights at below-market prices.

Investigators suspected that tens of millions of US dollars were paid to a top adviser of ex-president Joseph Kabila, a close friend of Gertler who ruled the mineral-rich yet conflict-plagued country from 2001 to 2019.

In Tuesday's statement, the Dutch prosecutor's office said it had slapped Fleurette with a fine of 25.8 million euros ($30 million) on March 6.

"By accepting this penal order, the Dutch Prosecutor's Office has concluded that Fleurette, together with others, was guilty of foreign public official bribery in the DRC in the framework of the acquisition of mining licenses," the office said.

Dutch investigators had already dropped their probe into Glencore, which acted as Gertler's business partner in the DRC, after the Swiss commodities giant agreed to pay a fine to settle a separate graft investigation in Switzerland.

Lawyers for Fleurette told AFP that the fine brings the investigation to a close and that the Dutch authorities have confirmed they will not bring any charges against Gertler himself.

In a statement on Monday, Fleurette confirmed that it had "paid a settlement of €25.8 million to the Dutch authorities, as required by the penal order", insisting that the fine brought "to a close an eight-year investigation into historic matters dating back to 2010, without charge against any individuals or other entities".

Gertler, who continues to wield significant influence in the DRC, was first sanctioned by the United States in 2017 for allegedly cheating the Congolese state out of about $1.4 billion in revenues through opaque mining deals.

While US President Donald Trump reversed some of the sanctions just before the end of his first term, Washington put him back on the blacklist in March 2021.

In February 2022, the Congolese state announced it had reached an out-of-court settlement with Gertler, allowing the DRC to recover disputed mining and oil assets valued at more than $2 billion.

Gertler's profits in the DRC came to light in 2016 with the publication of the so-called Panama Papers.

The Israeli businessman, who spent nearly 20 years acting as a go-between on some of the largest deals struck in the DRC's notoriously corruption-riddled mining sector, has always denied any suggestion of graft or underhand wheeler-dealing.