Donald Trump summed up his overall ignorance about Africa at a luncheon held on the sidelines of the plenary meeting of the United Nations General Assembly in New York on September 20. Trump told the presidents of Côte d’Ivoire, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guinea, Namibia, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, and Uganda, “I have so many friends going to your countries trying to get rich.”
Trump also referred to the health care system of “Nambia,” a non-existent country believed to be Namibia. In what may be of further interest to Justice Department Special Counsel Robert Mueller, Trump’s admission that his “friends” go to Africa to “get rich,” provides further insight into the international criminal syndicate that illegally supported Trump’s political campaign.
Among Trump “friends” getting rich in Africa are expatriate billionaire oligarchs living in Israel, Britain, and other countries who are viciously exploiting Africa’s natural resources, including diamonds, gold, platinum, oil, and rare earth minerals. Some of these brigands who are robbing Africa blind are business associates of Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner and his family.
Among these “friends” are the billionaire Steinmetz family of Israel. Beny Steinmetz, Israel’s second-richest person, was arrested in August of this year by Israeli police in a major investigation of global money laundering. Steinmetz’s BSGR, headquartered on the isle of Guernsey, has been the subject of the Justice Department criminal probe of bribing officials in the Republic of Guinea in West Africa for lucrative mining concessions, particularly the Simandou iron mine concession. The Justice Department’s investigation is focused on Steinmetz’s violation of the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.
Switzerland and the Republic of Guinea are also conducting a criminal investigation of Steinmetz’s business operations. Steinmetz was also indicted in absentia by the National Anti-corruption Directorate of Romania for stealing the inheritance of Paul-Philippe Hohenzollern, a claimant to the throne of Romania. One of Steinmetz’s U.S. attorneys is Harvard law professor and noted Trump defender Alan Dershowitz.
Trump met during the luncheon with Guinea’s president Alpha Condé, whose government initiated a criminal investigation of Steinmetz companies, much to the chagrin of Jared Kushner and his family, who are business associates of the Steinmetz clan.
The U.S. probe of Steinmetz’s bribery of Guinean officials saw the FBI’s arrest of Steinmetz associate Frederic Cilins in Florida and former Guinean Minister of Mines Mahmoud Thiam in New York. The FBI also interviewed Mamadie Touré, the widow of Condé’s predecessor Lansana Conté, the president who granted the mining concessions to Steinmetz in return for Steinmetz bribes. Touré, much to Steinmetz’s dismay, became a cooperating witness for the FBI. She told the FBI that she accepted $5.3 million in cash; three houses in Jacksonville, Florida; refrigerators; aquariums; Toyota Land Cruisers; and diamond jewelry from Steinmetz’s representatives in return for Guinean mining concessions.
The 2014 U.S. asset forfeiture complaint against Touré never even mentioned Steinmetz, an indication of the undue influence Israel maintains over the U.S. law enforcement and judicial system, especially in Florida. Steinmetz’s firm is cited as a “business entity not based in the United States engaged in the mining industry to obtain valuable iron ore rights in Guinea.”
Trump’s reference to his “friends” who are getting rich in Africa may have prompted Mueller’s investigators to closely examine the Justice Department’s case files on Steinmetz and his cronies, including the Kushner family. Questions also arise about the little Trump does know about Africa. For example, did Trump’s son-in-law Kushner tell the president about the troubles visited upon his business partners, the Steinmetz family, by the President of Guinea? And did Trump put the squeeze on President Condé, who also represents the African Union, at the New York luncheon?
The Steinmetz Diamond Group—re-named Diacor International Ltd., is one of the companies authorized to buy diamonds directly from South Africa’s DeBeers, S.A. South African President Jacob Zuma was one of the African leaders present at the New York luncheon where Trump spoke of his “friends” getting rich in Africa.
Beny Steinmetz’s nephew, Raz Steinmetz, is a real estate partner of the Kushner Companies in the Trump Bay Street tower in Jersey City, New Jersey. The Steinmetz and Kushner families also co-own 15 buildings in Manhattan. In early 2017, Kushner Companies and Steinmetz jointly purchased, under the corporate name “Gaia,” a Brooklyn pasta factory for $56 million.
One of Kushner’s business partners is the firm Stonehage Fleming, a wealth management firm that oversees a $40 billion fund for 250 of the world’s wealthiest people, many of whom are Trump’s “friends” who have staked claims for Africa’s natural resources. The Fleming side of the firm was founded by relatives of James Bond’s creator Ian Fleming, himself a one-time British MI-6 intelligence agent. Before its merger with Fleming Family & Partners in 2014, Stonehage, a South African firm, maintained offices in South Africa, Switzerland, United Kingdom, Australia, Luxembourg, British Virgin Islands, and the U.S.
Trump’s “friends” who are getting rich in Africa are those investors, many faceless and nameless, who determine what African governments rise and fall as a result of coups and armed insurrections.
Other members of the network of oligarchs who supported Trump’s presidential campaign represent a “Who’s Who” of dubious and suspect investors in Africa, all of whom have links to Israel and major international Zionist organizations. They include Trump real estate investors Alexander Mashkevich, Patokh Chodiev, and Alijan Ibragimov, who have major mining investments in the Democratic Republic of Congo; Arkady Gaydamak and his son, Alexandre Gaydamak; and diamond merchant and Ivanka Trump business partner Moshe Lax.
Trump sees Africa as one huge “get rich quick scheme.” That rhetoric came as music to the ears of the African grifters—presidents like Uganda’s Yoweri Museveni, Zuma, and Côte d’Ivoire’s Alassane Ouattara—who were present at the luncheon and who have also made certain that their offshore bank accounts are flush with bribe money paid by Trump’s rich pals.
Previously published in the Wayne Madsen Report.
Copyright © 2017 WayneMadenReport.com
Wayne Madsen is a Washington, DC-based investigative journalist and nationally-distributed columnist. He is the editor and publisher of the Wayne Madsen Report (subscription required).
