“He Met Alpha Condé, He Corrupted The Process”
The Telegraph newspaper reported that Steinmetz blamed Soros’ advice to Guinean president Alpha Condé for the mess BSGR is in.
The Telegraph newspaper reported that Steinmetz blamed Soros’ advice to Guinean president Alpha Condé for the mess BSGR is in.
Whenever there is bad news out of Africa for mining giant Rio Tinto, a powerful group of people gather in the boardroom of the company’s headquarters off St James Square in London.
The former minister of mines and geology for the African Republic of Guinea was arrested on Tuesday in New York and charged with taking $8.5m in bribes in exchange for assigning lucrative investment rights to a Chinese-owned conglomerate.
The consultant who was paid $US10.5 million by Rio Tinto for helping recover iron ore concessions in Guinea had “privileged” access to the African nation’s president and had “acted hand in hand with Guinean authorities” it has been claimed on French television.
A former minister of mines of Guinea, Mahmoud Thiam has told Bloomberg that the head of Rio Tinto’s Guinea operation, Steven Din, offered him a bribe six years ago.
Rio Tinto, long the bluest of blue-chip companies, finds itself mired in a corruption scandal over how it was able to secure a fabulously large iron ore project in the jungles of the Simandou Mountains, in the historically corruption-challenged west African nation of Guinea.
World number two miner Rio Tinto is exiting the world’s largest mining project, by selling its stake in Guinea’s Simandou iron ore to partner Chinalco, potentially opening up a new path to development for the $20 billion project.