Rogues: True Stories of Grifters, Killers, Rebels and Crooks

Keefe opens with a description of a massive naturally-occurring iron ore deposit in Simandou, Guinea. Global demand for iron is high, but there are logistical challenges to the mine’s future. Guinea is impoverished and underdeveloped, and mining infrastructure and transport is complex and expensive to build. Some experts compare Guinea’s situation to “a new scramble for Africa” (286), an analogy to previous European competition for colonies, though now the draw is minerals. But Guinea’s situation also presents an opportunity to move on from a past of exploitation: If the mine could be properly managed, its wealth could transform the lives of ordinary citizens rather than those of elites and foreign investors.

The competition for iron extraction contracts is limited to a small range of companies. The original mining concession was granted to an Anglo-Australian company, Rio Tinto, in 2008, but the Guinean government was not satisfied with the pace of work. In 2009, rights were resold to Beny Steinmetz Group Resources (BSGR). Its owner and leader Beny Steinmetz is an Israeli businessman, who made his $9 billion fortune in diamonds. Rio Tinto strongly protested the deal because of Steinmetz’s inexperience, noting it was entirely possible Steinmetz would sell the mine rather than develop it. In 2010, he did sell a 51% stake in the mine to the Brazilian company Vale, netting BSGR approximately $5 billion dollars.

The larger political concern around Simandou was that Steinmetz had exploited the culture of corruption in Guinea to acquire it. Guinea’s new president, Alpha Condé, elected on a platform of transparency and good government in 2010, began to investigate the matter. Condé, who had spent much of his life in France or as a political prisoner, realized immediately that Guinea lacked a professional and transparent bureaucracy. However, he had international contacts interested in supporting his goals, including financier George Soros and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair. Although Condé did not live up to his own ideals, frequently delaying parliamentary elections, he did focus immediately on corruption in the mining sector.

Keefe next describes Steinmetz’s biography and acquisition of Simandou. Steinmetz has many residences in Tel Aviv, London, and Switzerland—the latter for tax purposes. As a young man, he entered the family diamond business, which soon required travel to Africa for new sources of gemstones. Steinmetz adjusted quickly to the continent’s occupational hazards, which included physical danger and complex politics. BSGR acquired the Simandou concession under Guinea’s previous dictator, General Lansana Conté, in the last weeks of his final illness and continued to hold the concession through political unrest.

Condé’s reformist government immediately realized the need for outside support, including George Soros and anticorruption experts. One specialist, Steven Fox, located the BSGR “operator” (296) who did most of the early investigations in Guinea on Steinmetz’s behalf—Frenchman Frédéric Cilins. Cilins spent six months cultivating contacts for Steinmetz, ultimately focusing on Conté’s fourth wife, a young woman named Mamadie Touré. Cilins gave lavish gifts to Guinean ministers and the Touré family, which he did not hesitate to mention to Fox.

Keefe notes that international efforts to curtail such casual corruption are fairly recent, and that BSGR “does not have a compliance department and does not have a single employee whose chief responsibility is to monitor company behavior abroad” (297). After the death of her husband, Mamadie Touré purchased an extensive estate in Florida.

Journeying to Guinea, Keefe notes that corruption greets him immediately, as “at the airport, a uniformed officer will stop you, raising no objections but making it clear with his body that your exit from the situation will be transactional” (298). He meets a mining official who implicates his predecessor, a man named Mahmoud Thiam, whose work included “distributing bribes” on behalf of BSGR (299). BSGR insists that the corruption must be proven, but Keefe notes that by its nature, corruption involves secrecy and legal loopholes—US law being no exception.

The next stage in the drama began in 2012. Mamadie Touré, unsatisfied with Steinmetz, offered to prove the bribery surrounding BSGR’s work, as she had asked for written receipts of her compensation for granting access to the president and the mining deal.

By this time, President Condé was dealing with political instability of his own, including attempts on his life and protests due to his refusal to hold parliamentary elections. BSGR intensified its public campaign against his government, attacking its new contract with rival Rio Tinto for part of Simandou. Keefe points out that this new contract, however, directly benefited the Guinean government.

Steinmetz met with Condé in September 2011, demanding to know what his company had done to deserve such ill treatment. Condé responded that his goals were those of his nation, not a personal agenda. Keefe posits that Steinmetz’s chief concern was his own reputation. When his public relations firm ended their working relationship with BSGR over the scandal, Steinmetz accused its director of attacking him personally; Steinmetz similarly claimed that George Soros, who is also Jewish, was seeking to destroy him and the state of Israel.

The quest to implicate BSGR in corruption resumed in Florida in 2013, when Cilins met with Mamadie Touré, urging her to destroy all evidence of her deal with the company and promising more money if she complied. Cilins did not know she was by that time an FBI informant recording the conversation, hoping he would name Steinmetz directly as the source of her payments. Cilins was arrested and the scandal had chilling effects for BSGR. Its former partner Vale refused to continue paying for its share in the mine.

In June 2013, Keefe flies to France to meet Steinmetz for the first time, on a yacht on the French Riviera. Steinmetz insists that his purchase of Simandou was simply a successful gamble. He insists Touré’s documents are fake, but cannot explain the offers of money to her. Steinmetz, before leaving Keefe, insists that he and his company are “victims” of Condé (312).

Around the same time, Keefe meets with Condé again. Keefe notes that the president’s reformist promises have been tarnished by his failure to hold elections, while Condé blames Steinmetz and BSGR. The company now insists that Touré was never married to the Guinean president. Keefe realizes this is a ploy for legal cover: If they can paint Touré as simply another “lobbyist” (312), then payments to her would have been legal. The FBI and the US Department of Justice continue their investigations. Condé remains stunned that so many have made billions from a mine his country has yet to profit from.

Keefe notes in his afterword that Steinmetz was convicted in a Swiss court in 2021, but is appealing his jail sentence. Condé is no longer Guinea’s president, having been deposed in a coup, and the Simandou mine has yet to fulfill its development potential.