Daniel Steinmetz is the latest name to come up among those who might have enjoyed preferential treatment, including possible illegal tax dodges at Switzerland’s HSBC bank, according to Gazettebw.
Steinmetz, owner of Steinmetz diamonds Botswana, may have stashed away $264 million in a protected Swiss bank account to evade taxes. Steinmetz was alleged to have shared the account with Dan Gertler, with whom he had partnerships in the Congo. Steinmetz was said to have controlled half a billion dollars at the bank between 2006 and 2007.
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Daniel Steinmetz is the brother and partner of diamond billionaire Benny Steinmetz, and owns with his son Raz, a stake in the Steinmetz Group, a major player in the global diamond market and one of the largest customers of De Beers.
Steinmetz isn’t the only one in the diamond business that is getting in trouble in the HSBC investigation, but Lev Leviev and Maurice Tempelsman are also coming under scrutiny. Since Belgian authorities charged HSBC with fraud and money laundering over its dealings with certain diamond dealers, Russian-Israeli billionaire Lev Leviev, Maurice Tempelsman and his company Lazare Kaplan International might be implicated.
However, these allegations have been denied. Christian Merkling, the attorney for Lazare Kaplan International (LKI) and for American Maurice Tempelsman told NewEra, “Even the most perfunctory investigation would have revealed neither LKI or any of its subsidiaries (and Maurice Tempelsman, for that matter) are on the list of holders for such accounts because no such accounts were held by them.”
