""Gertler, whose grandfather co-founded Israel’s
diamond exchange in 1947, arrived in Congo in 1997 seeking rough diamonds. The
23-year-old trader struck a deep friendship with Joseph Kabila, who then headed
the Congolese army and today is the nation’s president. Since those early days,
Gertler has invested in iron ore, gold, cobalt and copper as well as
agriculture, oil and banking. In the process, he’s built up a net worth of at
least $2.5 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
He’s also acquired a roster of critics. Many of the
government’s deals with Gertler deprive Congo’s 68 million people of badly
needed funds, according to the London-based anticorruption group Global Witness
and lawmakers from Congo and the U.K., the country’s second-biggest aid donor
after the U.S.
“Dan Gertler is essentially looting Congo at the expense
of its people,” says Jean Pierre Muteba, the head of a group of nongovernmental
organizations that monitor the mining sector in Katanga province, where most of
Congo’s copper is located."
