|
|
|
Notícies :: corrupció i poder |
|
Alrosa Embarrassed by Angolan Gun-Runner
|
|
|
per John Helmer |
29 mar 2005
|
(Sponsored by de Beers)
MOSCOW (Mineweb.com) -- A notorious Russian-Israeli business figure, on the run from criminal charges in several countries, has caused serious embarrassment for Alrosa, Russia's leading diamond-mining company, by making it appear that he is behind Alrosa's diamond trading and mining operations in Israel and Angola. |
'23-MAR-05 10:00'
MOSCOW (Mineweb.com) -- A notorious Russian-Israeli business figure, on the run from criminal charges in several countries, has caused serious embarrassment for Alrosa, Russia's leading diamond-mining company, by making it appear that he is behind Alrosa's diamond trading and mining operations in Israel and Angola.
The publication of claims by 52-year old Arkady Gaydamak, who currently lives in Moscow in fear of arrest if he travels abroad, comes as he faces new allegations of money-laundering in his adoptive state of Israel.
For Alrosa to appear to be working with Gaydamak at this time flies in the face of the anti-corruption programme that Alrosa has adopted, since the appointment of the new chief executive, Alexander Nichiporuk. That Nichiporuk has been acting under Kremlin orders was made clear late in December, when President Vladimir Putin summoned Vyacheslav Shtirov, the former head of the company, and currently president of the Sakha region, where most of Alrosa's diamonds are mined. Shtirov was given an ultimatum: either he, his regional government, and his trustees in the Alrosa management agree to the federal cleanup of the company, or else Putin will replace him as the new regional president.
Last year also, Gaydamak was told by high-level Russian officials in Moscow that his attempts to involve himself in Russian dealmaking over Angola's international debt, its diamonds, oil, and arms, are no longer welcome as they once were, a decade ago, to earlier Russian governments.
Isolated, but with the Angolans still loyal friends, Gaydamak told an interviewer for the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz that three weeks ago, he arranged for a privately leased aircraft to fly Nichiporuk, to Israel, where he introduced meetings with Israeli ministers of finance and trade, Benjamin Netanyahu and Ehud Olmert. Then, according to Gaydamak's story, he flew Nichiporuk to Angola, where he introduced him to President Jose Eduardo dos Santos.
According to Gaydamak, Santos has appointed him an "an authorized signatory to negotiate on behalf of the Angolan government". For his Israeli interviewer, Gaydamak drove "a black Bentley with diplomatic license plates". His Angolan diplomat passport,he claimed, was issued ten years ago. "I am considered a high-ranking diplomat of the Angolan embassy in Moscow," Gaydamak is reported as saying. There was no response to calls to the Angolan embassy in Moscow. Last October, in an interview with a Moscow radio station, Gaydamak described himself as an "advisor" to the Angolan embassy.
Gaydamak claims he gave last week's lengthy interview to Ha'aretz to rescue his public reputation. In addition to the money-laundering allegations in Israel, in France, he has been accused of illegal gun-running in southern Africa, corruption, and tax offences. In Switzerland and elsewhere, he has been implicated in unlawful oil for foreign debt transactions, involving the government in Luanda with a variety of other states, including Russia. "The reports are hurting my business," he is quoted in Ha'aretz as saying. "I decided to launch a campaign to clear my name. I want to say that I am not a bad person, that I am a victim of a campaign of slander, disinformation and lies by government elements in France who are being assisted by the Israel Police and the media."
Nichiporuk took over his post at Alrosa from a career as an economist and banker. He is assisted by Yury Ionov, who heads Alrosa's economic security and legal division; he has been a security officer. One of their targets, a source close to the company has said, is special discounting of diamond sales and other deals through an Alrosa subsidiary to the Israeli diamantaire, Lev Leviev. Leviev controls the second largest diamond cutting plant in Russia, and generates turnover of about $1 billion in diamond manufacturing around the world.
Gaydamak and Leviev have been partners, and according to Gaydamak, he introduced Leviev to his now lucrative diamond mining and diamond trading operations in Angola. Although the two have severed some elements of their business partnership, Gaydamak hinted that they remain allies in Angola. He told Ha'aretz he had "opened the gates of that country [Angola] for Leviev and helped him get a monopoly on its diamond exports."
Leviev and Alrosa have also been partners at Catoca, Angola's newest diamond mine. However, sources close to Alrosa say that Nichiporuk is attempting to curtail these links.
Alrosa officials are embarrassed by the attention Gaydamak has drawn to Nichiporuk, and they are hoping that none of Gayamak's notoriety will rub off on to their chief. A source at the company said that Nichiporuk has not flown on a private airplane of Gaydamak's. Nichiporuk, the source said, did meet in Israeli recently with Netanyahu and Olmert, and he did meet with dos Santos. At these meetings, the source acknowledged, Gaydamak was present. However, "Nichiporuk already knows all these individuals, and didn’t need introduction, including dos Santos whom he knows well from Alrosa’s Angolan business." Gaydamak's participation in both the Israeli and Angolan meetings, the source added, was as "the representative of Angola in Russia.�
Still unexplained is what the Israelis want from Nichiporuk, either for Israel's diamond import requirements, or for Israeli interests in Angola. These are highly sensitive issues for Kremlin officials, who have rejected earlier attempts by the Israelis to build a diamond stockpile in Israel out of Russian supplies. The Kremlin is also trying to establish its own control of state strategy in southern Africa, and prevent Russian corporates like Alrosa using African projects as conduits for corrupt diversion of cash abroad.
In a circular to Eurobond investors last October, Alrosa disclosed that it holds a direct 33-percent stake in the Catoca mine, and when a hydroelectric power station it is currently building is operational, production at the mine will increase substantially. Annual output at the mine, which Alrosa shares with Leviev and others, was 2.7 million carats last year, worth an estimated $170 million. Alrosa also holds an indirect 20-percent stake in the projected new Angolan mine at Lour. The Eurobond prospectus identified other diamond mining interests for the Russian company in Sierra Leone, Demoractic Republic of Congo, and "other African countries". At a meeting early this month in Moscow with Sandile Nogxina, director-general of the Department of Minerals and Energy in Pretoria, Nichiporuk claimed that Alrosa is looking at diamond mining opportunities in South Africa. |
Mira també:
http://www.mineweb.net/columns/emerging_russia/427009.htm
|
This work is in the public domain |
