How Glencore Flew Bribe Money for Government Officials in Nigerian, Others in Private Jets

• Prosecutors have told a London court how Glencore flew bribe money to Nigeria in private jets
• The bribes were paid to Nigerian officials to influence oil industry contracts
• Glencore committed as much as $28 million to bribe officials in five African countries in order to gain access to oil cargoes.

A London court has heard how some Glencore staff transported bribe money via private jets to officials based in Nigeria and four other African countries.

Following an investigation by Serious Fraud Office (SFO), a government department, which investigates serious or complex fraud, bribery and graft, Glencore owned up to counts of bribery in some West African markets including Nigeria.

How Glencore officials carried out the bribes

According to Bloomberg, prosecutors told the court that Glencore, one of the largest commodity trading companies in the world, committed as much as $28 million to bribe officials in these countries in order to gain access to oil cargoes.

Prosecutors also disclosed that the officials to which the bribes were paid were based in Equatorial Guinea, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ivory Coast, Cameroun and Nigeria. They added that the crude oil desk of the Swiss company concealed the payments in what could be read to legitimate services.

It was stated:

Glencore set aside $1.5bn to settle a series of global probes, including about $1.1bn for US authorities As the SFO’s investigation focused on Glencore’s London office and its west Africa desk, which sourced oil across the continent.

The money was transported, often by private jet, from Nigeria to Cameroon to a Glencore oil trader who used it to pay bribes, according to the SFO, with $13.7mn paid to officials in Cameroon’s national oil and gas company and the country’s national refinery in the three years to March 1, 2015.

Glencore Paid Nigerian Officials $52 Million Bribe, Earned $124 Million

In 2021, a former Glencore trader, Anthony Stimler, pleaded guilty to a scheme to bribe officials of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) for a favourable oil contract.

It was revealed that in exchange for more lucrative grades of oil on more favourable delivery terms contracts, millions of dollars were paid as bribes to NNPC and Nigerian government officials.

Legit.ng reported in May 2022 that with a string of coded words, mining giant, Glencore made profits of $124 million after giving out $52 million worth of bribes to Nigerian officials between 2007 and 2018.

According to reports, Glencore UK units employed coded language to hide their discussions of bribe payments, calling them newspapers, journals or pages.

Court papers showed that Stimler worked on the West Africa desk between 2002-2009 and again between 2011-2019.

Source: Legit.ng