Dan Gertler

Dan Gertler (born 23 December 1973) is an Israeli billionaire businessman in natural resources and the founder and president of the DGI (Dan Gertler International) group of companies.

He has diamond and copper mining interests in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), and has invested in iron ore, gold, cobalt, oil, agriculture, and banking.

He may also hold citizenship of that country.

his fortune was estimated at $1.2 billion by Forbes.

In 1996, Gertler founded the Dan Gertler International (DGI) group of companies.

He bought his first mine in the DRC in 1997.

Gertler purchased many of the Congo's "most profitable mineral rights" and has been a "close friend" of the President of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Joseph Kabila since their youth.

Joseph Kabila introduced Gertler to his father, then-president of the DRC Laurent Kabila, in 2000.

After gaining experience with purchasing and marketing artisanally mined diamonds from the DRC, Gertler started negotiations to establish a partnership with the Societé Minière de Bakwanga (MIBA), a DRC state-controlled diamond mine operator.

Through his friendship with the young Joseph Kabila, Gertler was introduced to his father Laurent Kabila, then-president of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), in 2000.

From September 2000 through April 2001, Gertler had the sole right to buy "all diamonds produced in territory under the control of the Congolese Government", for which he had paid Kabila $20 million.

He ran a quasi "comptoir" in the DRC with International Diamond Industries-Congo (IDI-Congo), the affiliate of his Israeli firm, IDI-Diamonds Industry.

IDI-Congo received 70 percent of the profits and the Congolese Government received 30 percent, which included the state diamond producer, MIBA, and all diamonds sold by private businesses.

The deal was to "regulate and certify the origins of its diamonds under new UN requirements intended to weed out blood diamonds" and diamond smuggling.

Even with the IDI-Congo monopoly offering below-market prices for diamonds, the Congo received a greater percentage of diamond revenues than before the monopoly was in place.

A report by the mines auditing service at the mines ministry was harshly critical of IDI-Congo's diamond export monopoly.

The IDI deal was haunted by allegations that Israelis had arrangements to train Congolese security forces in brutal techniques, as they had under Mobutu Sese Seko, and that IDI was buying diamonds from UNITA.

Also, by paying below the market price, IDI encouraged smuggling into the Republic of the Congo (Brazzaville).

After Laurent Kabila's assassination in January 2001, Gertler briefly lost influence in the Congo.

In April 2001, Laurent's son and successor, Joseph Kabila, revoked IDI's monopoly.

DRC diamond producers shut out of the IDI monopoly had been unhappy with the monopoly, and the International Monetary Fund had encouraged the country to liberalize the diamond industry.

In 2001, Gertler established Emaxon Finance International Inc, in Canada, as a subsidiary of Dan Gertler International (DGI) (reported by the International Development Research Centre according to the 2001 International Peace Information Service (IPIS) publication, and according to the Quebec trade register. )

In April 2002, Emaxon secretly signed a contract through which Gertler gained a four-year right to market 88% of the rough-diamond production of the Societé minière de Bakwanga (MIBA), about a quarter of the DRC's legitimate diamond exports, at around 600,000 carats a month.

Emaxon enjoyed a five-percent discount on its purchase of MIBA diamonds, which it then usually sold in the free market to the highest bidder.

Emaxon lent MIBA $15 million to modernize its mining equipment.

Dan Gertler is the grandson of Moshe Schnitzer, first president and co-founder of the Israel Diamond Exchange, and the winner of the Israel Prize in 2004.

His family was involved in cutting and merchandising diamonds.

While growing up, Gertler learned about the diamond trade from his father and grandfather.

After completing his 3-year mandatory service in the Israeli Defense Forces, he opened his own diamond business.

Gertler is married to Anat Gertler with whom he has 12 children.

They live in Bnei Brak.

Gertler soon managed to reestablish a relationship with Joseph Kabila, becoming increasingly close socially, to the point that, in 2006, Kabila invited him to his wedding.

By 2009, DGI group was one of the largest wholesale distributors of rough and polished diamonds in the world.

The group spans mining, manufacturing and sales operations.

Gertler's deals have been under scrutiny by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank since 2012.

He has been described as "controversial", and as making most of his fortune from "looting Congo at the expense of its people".

The Panama papers revealed deals carried out through Mossack Fonseca shell companies, among his many offshore companies.

Effective 21 December 2017, US President Donald Trump issued Executive Order 13818 implementing the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act and listed Gertler in the Annex, blocking all of Gertler's assets under U.S. jurisdiction.

The implementation of these sanctions was probably one of the reasons that Gertler's close friend, then-President of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Joseph Kabila, decided not to run for re-election in the 2018 election.

However, on January 15, 2021 the US Treasury lifted the sanctions on Gertler, though the Biden administration quickly restored the sanctions on March 8, 2021.