Excerpt from the FBI’s video of Mamadie Touré and Frédéric Cilins

This video accompanies OCCRP’s June 2024 profile of mining magnate Beny Steinmetz. () In December 2008, his company Beny Steinmetz Group Resources (BSGR) was granted iron ore rights, worth billions of dollars, covering half of the Simandou mountains in Guinea, West Africa. It soon sold a 51% stake in the licenses for $2.5 billion. It later emerged that BSGR gained the rights by bribing Mamadie Touré, the wife of Guinea’s then-President. BSGR even signed contracts with her, spelling out the payment As investigators closed in, BSGR’s main middleman, Frédéric Cilins, traveled to meet Touré in Florida, and offered her millions of dollars to hand over the originals of the contracts, so they could be destroyed. He also told her to lie to the FBI. But unknown to Cilins, Touré was cooperating with the FBI and was wearing a wire. This is an excerpt of the FBI video and transcript from 11 April 2014. Cilins was arrested at a follow-up meeting with Touré three days later, pled guilty to bribery and obstructing a federal investigation, and received a two-year sentence. Despite the evidence in the recordings, Cilins maintained in court he didn’t act on Steinmetz’s orders, a position echoed by Steinmetz. For a full transcript of the FBI recordings, see p. 71 here: ’ Amended Memorial/Factual Exhibits/