Southern African gold scams become a global pandemic
On Sunday, West African leaders joined together to initiate a peacekeeping force to intervene against jihadism in its member states. They agreed the issue has become a regional crisis and requires international cooperation. The same should be said of the corruption and criminality in the gold industries in Southern Africa – although it has now surpassed regional crisis and become a global pandemic. Gold scams are crippling the economies by deterring legitimate international investments and Southern African countries should work together to tackle the problem. The gold trade is incredibly lucrative but also lacks enforced regulations.
Felons from all around the world want their part of the African gold action, and their trick is dressing up as international businessmen.
In August, reports emerged regarding Sutter Capital, a gold investment firm operating throughout Africa. The UK-founded company was discovered to have defrauded investors of £360,000. The director, of British and Mosotho nationality, was disqualified as a director by the High Court in the UK for 14 years. His disqualification order prevents him from directly, or indirectly, becoming involved in the promotion, formation or management of a company, without the permission of the court.
Another case saw a Kenyan scam the owner of a gold trading firm based in Dubai into paying $2.5m for ‘confiscated gold’ from the Democratic Republic of Congo. It was later discovered the gold had reportedly never been confiscated and someone falsely impersonated the interior cabinet secretary in a ruse to get the Emirate to pay for the gold to be ‘released.’ The incident caused a diplomatic uproar between Kenya and the Emirates.
As recently as last week reports broke of a new case, thought to be worth $65m and once again involving the African gold industry.
The deal is said to involve a Singapore family office and a relatively unknown firm called MasterDragon, a recently formed and non-regulated Zimbabwean commercial entity.
The introduction to the Singaporean family office, who are now owed $65m, is said to have arisen through Mark Yong, aka Khong Yoong Mark Yong, a Singaporean businessman. Yong was also reported to have been involved in a previous case that ended in court concerning Metallon Group.
Yong has previously run into trouble with the authorities in Australia after allegations he defrauded a casino on the Gold Coast for $5m after manipulating a sophisticated financial facility.
Mr. Yong, who lists himself as a director of Damo Resources, a gold mining business in Zimbabwe, is thought to have used his Singapore links to first attract a business partner by the name of Carlos Salas, based in Taiwan, to the Zimbabwean gold deal.
Salas is listed as Senior Partner & CEO of Coinful Capital, an investment fund with offices in Grand Cayman, Singapore and Hong Kong. Both Yong and Salas have been reported to have spent significant time in Harare recently, with influential individuals closely linked to the Zimbabwean mining industry.
The reports of the latest allegations from the gold industry were put to a senior official close to the Zimbabwean Ministry of Finance. He commented, “I don’t yet know the details but there are rumours of another massive corruption allegation have been arising in recent weeks with regards to Fidelity Printers and Refinery regarding a Singaporean fund. If true, this is will be disastrous and a major setback in our efforts to portray ourselves as open for business. The only way we are going to attract international investment and improve our economic situation is by demonstrating we have proper systems in place. Our efforts are being continually undermined by these criminals exploiting our processes. Once we know the full details are known we will take the appropriate action.”
Time after time foreigners are caught up in gold scandals. They are either exploiting another nation’s resources or they are on the receiving end of the corruption. Regardless, the African gold industry gets a bad name which taints the region as a whole and it is time Southern African countries worked together to crack down on these issues arising.