Beny Steinmetz (Beny-Steinmetz.com)
Israeli Diamond tycoon Beny Steinmetz was arrested in Cyprus on a warrant issued by Romania over his conviction in that country on charges of corruption. Cyprus and Romania are both members of the European Union and so maybe Steinmetz should not have traveled to an EU state.
The arrest came as Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is visiting Cyprus where he hopes to sign an important new deal for the sale of Israeli natural gas and further cooperation on energy matters.
In 2020 Beny Steinmetz was convicted in absentia in Romania on charges of real estate fraud and was sentenced to five years in prison.
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Beny Steinmetz’s spokesperson said he was detained “during his arrival at Larnaca airport, due to a European Arrest Warrant (EAW) issued by the Romanian authorities, which has already been canceled in various European countries, among them Greece and Italy.”
“Beny Steinmetz welcomes the opportunity to be vindicated in one more European State, against Romania, a country infamous for its disrespect to human rights,” added the spokesperson.
In 2021, Beny Steinmetz was found guilty in Switzerland on charges of corruption related to a mining deal that took place in the African nation of Guinea. Specifically, Steinmetz was convicted of corrupting foreign public officials and forging documents. He was sentenced to five years in prison and ordered to pay a $56.5 million fine by the court.
His mining company Beny Steinmetz Group Resources (BSGR) was charged with accused of paying $10 million in bribes for iron ore mining exploration permits in southern Guinea in 2008.
Beny Steinmetz is an Israeli businessman and entrepreneur, with a focus in the mining, energy, real estate and diamond-mining industries. He has been accused of corrupt and illegal business practices in multiple countries.
Steinmetz was born in Netanya, Israel in 1956. He is the fourth child of Rubin Steinmetz, a pioneer of the diamond trade. At the age of 21, after serving three years in the military, Steinmetz emigrated from Israel to Belgium, to the famous diamond hub, Antwerp.
In Antwerp, Steinmetz founded the Steinmetz Diamond Group, which became one of the world’s largest diamond trading companies. In the 1990s, Steinmetz expanded his business into mining, acquiring interests in several African countries. In 2008, he acquired the rights to the Simandou iron ore deposit in Guinea, one of the world’s largest.
Steinmetz’s business practices have been the subject of controversy. In 2013, he was accused of bribing Guinean officials to secure the rights to the Simandou deposit. He was also accused of using his political connections to obtain mining licenses in other African countries. In 2017, he was indicted in the United States on charges of violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.
Despite the controversies surrounding him, Steinmetz remains a powerful figure in the global mining industry. He is the chairman and co-founder of the Agnes & Beny Steinmetz Foundation, a philanthropic organization that supports education and social welfare projects in Israel. He is also a major art collector, with a collection that includes works by Pablo Picasso, Vincent van Gogh, and Claude Monet.
