Fraud office probes Gertler

THE UK Serious Fraud Office (SFO) is investigating Israeli billionaire Dan Gertler and four former Eurasian Natural Resources Corporation (ENRC) executives as part of its probe into the Kazakh company’s acquisition of copper and cobalt projects in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The SFO asked the DRC authorities to provide banking and business records relating to four DRC-registered companies in its probe into ENRC and nine people. They include ex-chief executive Felix Vulis; the former head of its Africa unit, Victor Hanna; two other ENRC executives; Gertler and two of his associates, according to a letter from the SFO to the DRC government. The probe relates to three sets of transactions through which ENRC acquired five mining projects in the DRC. – Bloomberg NIGERIA