More than ten years after the beginning of its problems with justice, the American Treasury decided, Thursday, to impose sanctions against the Belgian magnate of gold, Alain Goetz. A decision that will have consequences especially in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
In a statement released last Thursday, the US Treasury Department says it has frozen all assets of Belgian businessman Alain Goetz's companies.. The latter, who had made his fortune in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), had already been tried several times for gold trafficking and money laundering in Belgium, among others.
US Treasury sanctions will affect Alain Goetz and his companies, including two Belgian holding companies, a Seychelles-based holding company and five gold trading and refining companies based in the United Arab Emirates.
All bank accounts and physical and virtual assets will be brought under the control of the US Treasury Department, which has urged "who it may concern" to make "demands" as to recovery or compensation.
In a press release, Alain Goetz said US sanctions were 'based on misinformation'. He highlights that he "had not been to the Congo for more than 20 years" and that his activities are "all legal".
A new falling plutocrat
Alain Goetz had made his fortune in the countries of the Great Lakes region, particularly in the DRC and Uganda. But also in South Sudan, Tanzania and Kenya. Its African Gold Refinery (AGR) was the first in East Africa.
However, between 2011 and 2016, Belgian justice had investigated in particular the source of his fortune and determined that at least 9 million euros of the 1,2 billion collected by AGR between 2010 and 2011 were illegal gains. If the Court of Antwerp had condemned Goetz and his brother in 2020 to a fine of 100 euros, neither of them served the 000 months of reprieve which they received.
Alain Goetz has never been prosecuted in Africa. Based in Dubai, the Belgian tycoon seems out of reach. Only here, the freezing of American assets – the amount of which has not been specified – is a real blow, economically and diplomatically, for the businessman whose fortune is estimated at several billion dollars.
It will now be difficult for Goetz to continue to operate its refineries in Africa because, as shown sanctions against Israelis Beny Steinmetz and Dan Gertler or against the French Didier Sabag and Gérard Araud, American decisions are generally synonymous with the end of business in Africa.
Especially since in Congo, Alain Goetz was in the crosshairs of NGOs because of his alleged link with armed groups in the east, which control several gold mines. With groups increasingly asphyxiated militarily in the DRC, Congolese justice will in turn have a role to play, by taking its responsibilities to put an end to the looting of the country's mines.