Boluwatife Akinola
On May 20, 2024, an X (formerly Twitter) user, @Resist_05 claimed that the Biden administration is set to let Jewish Billionaire, Dan Gertler cash out on his mining position in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
The post reads: BREAKING🚨 The Biden Administration is set to allow Jewish billionaire Dan Gertler to cash out his mining positions in the Democratic Republic of Congo which has enraged human rights activists…
“Gertler is responsible for thousands of child slave deaths in his illegal cobalt and diamond mines in the DRC…”
The post was accompanied by a 14-seconds video showing a crowd in a mining workshop, performing mining work.
The post has garnered 3.4 million views, 545 replies, over 26,000 likes, 16,000 reposts, and 2,900 bookmarks as of the time of publishing this report.
One of the replies from the post by @Aunty_Audra commented “Wait, what? Cash out to whom? How does Biden have any say over the matter? How was Isreali Zionist Jew able to gain mining positions in the Congo in the first place? None of these makes sense.”
Another user @Q00BTC wrote “Disgusting — he should lose all his rights and entitlements and give it all to the citizens of Congo. The USA commits cruel outcomes for its foreign interests.”
The claims made in the post are quite significant due to the current situation in Democratic Republic of Congo where there was an attempted coup in mid-May involving United States citizens. The Congo’s Army reported that there was an attempted coup on Sunday, May 19 led by Christian Malanga, a politician and former military officer based in the US. Malanga was killed during the coup while about fifty people including three American citizens were arrested.
There is a circulating buzz on social media supported by a DailyMail article that the coup had U.S.’s Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) involvement to undermine President Felix Tshisekedi. Hence, when the video of the miners surfaced online with the accompanying claim that the U.S. government is at the centre of it again, N-VA went on a fact-checking mission to determine the authenticity of the visual and purported claim.
VERIFICATION
Who is in the video?
N-VA scrutinised the video attached to the post to verify its content and context. Using Google Lens, the researcher performed a reverse image search, which revealed several similar videos. One of the results led to a YouTube clip on BlazeTV showing the same footage in the X post.
The clip which ended at 16 seconds was taken from the same angle as the X post–which ended at 14 seconds. According to the voiceover from the YouTube clip, the video is from a cobalt mine in the Congo (a popular pseudonym for DR Congo). The video clip was uploaded on BlazeTV channel ten months ago.
The DRC
The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is a country located in Central Africa. By land area, the DRC is the second largest country in Africa and the 11th largest in the world.
The Congo is currently headed by President Félix Tshisekedi. Despite its challenges, the country holds significant potential due to its vast mineral wealth, including cobalt, copper, and diamonds, and its expansive rainforests, which are vital for global biodiversity and climate regulation. But like other African countries it has suffered from political instability, a lack of infrastructure, corruption, and centuries of both commercial and colonial extraction and exploitation after more than 60 years of independence.
Who is Biden?
Joe Biden is the 46th President of the United States, having taken office on January 20, 2021. He is a member of the Democratic Party. Prior to his presidency, Biden served as the Vice President of the United States from 2009 to 2017 under President Barack Obama.
In the 2020 presidential election, Biden ran as the Democratic candidate and defeated Donald Trump. Biden is currently seeking re-election to office against the same Republican candidate, Trump.
Who is Dan Gertler?
Dan Gertler is an Israeli billionaire philanthropist and businessman who specialises in natural resources. He is the founder and president of the Dan Gertler International (DGI) group of companies.
Research on his business interests uncovered that he has huge investments in diamond and copper mining in the DRC from the. Gertler’s foray into mineral resources was in 2000, when he made an investment of $20 million to secure the rights to purchase and export all artisanal diamonds out of the DRC for an 18-month period. Since then, he also divested into iron ore, gold, cobalt, oil, agriculture, and banking.
A further scrutiny of Gertler revealed that his businesses have been under scrutiny by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank since 2012. Gertler was described as a controversial figure by The Guardian and accused of “looting Congo at the expense of its people.”
Why was he sanctioned?
The researcher used keywords “Dan Gertler sanctioned” on google search engine and results showed that during the Donald Trump administration, Gertler was sanctioned for his Illegal businesses act.
Also, according to JCK, Dan Gertler was sanctioned for his involvement in corrupt business practices in the DRC. The U.S. Treasury alleged that Gertler used his close friendship with DRC President Joseph Kabila to act as a middleman for mining asset sales, requiring multinational companies to go through him to do business with the Congolese state, and that this arrangement reportedly led to the DRC losing over $1.36 billion in revenues between 2010 and 2012 due to the underpricing of mining assets sold to offshore companies linked to Gertler.
The U.S. Treasury’s Press Release on the matter stated that Gertler’s actions led to his sanctioning under the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act, which targets individuals guilty of corruption and human rights abuses.
But, a Reuters report exposed that before Donald Trump’s administration ended, he had quietly lifted the sanctions on Gertler as a licence was issued by Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) to Gentler’s lawyer. The license which did not remove Gertler, an associate and more than 30 of his companies from the sanctions list, authorised until Jan. 31, 2022, “all transactions and activities” otherwise prohibited by sanctions against them but required them to submit detailed reports to OFAC every 90 days about their financial activities.
Is Biden considering easing the sanction?
Using keywords in the claim such as “Biden to allow Gertler cash out” on google search engine, the researcher could not find direct statements or official documents from President Joe Biden to back up the claim.
We also searched through the White House website which is an official news website operated and maintained by the US. Government and found no press release or statement by the administration that specifically confirms that the Biden administration is currently taking action to allow Dan Gertler to cash out his mining positions in the DRC. Additionally, the White House official website which periodically updates information related to sanctions and international policy does not have any recent post specifically mentioning Gertler’s case.
Last month, some reputable media sources like Bloomberg and NY Times reported that the Biden administration has put plans in motion to ease sanctions on Gertler. The proposal from the White House would allow Gertler to sell off his remaining stakes in three giant copper and cobalt mining operations in the Congo. U.S. think tank, Atlantic Council published an article earlier this month highlighting the pros and cons of the proposal to ease Gertler’s sanction.
CONCLUSION
The claim that President Biden is considering allowing Gertler to cash out his mining position in the DRC is TRUE as reputable US media like Bloomberg and NY Times published reports confirming this development.
