Beny Steinmetz

Beny Steinmetz (בני שטיינמץ; born 2 April 1956) is an Israeli businessman and entrepreneur, with a focus in the mining, energy, real estate and diamond-mining industries.

He has been convicted of corrupt and illegal business practices in multiple countries.

Beny Steinmetz is the chairman and co-founder of the philanthropic trust, Agnes & Beny Steinmetz Foundation and is actively involved in the art world in Israel.

Beny Steinmetz was born in 1956 in Netanya, Israel and is the fourth child of Rubin Steinmetz, a pioneer of the diamond trade.

At the age of 21, after serving three years in the IDF, Steinmetz emigrated from Israel to Belgium, to the famous diamond hub, Antwerp.

Today Steinmetz lives in Israel with his wife Agnes and their four children.

Steinmetz also holds French citizenship and describes himself as an "international Israeli."

In 1988 he bought his first and largest diamond factory in South Africa.

In the coming years he expanded his activities to other African countries, such as Angola and Botswana.

He also branched out into ventures such as mining, real estate and capital markets.

The group operates in more than 25 countries.

Steinmetz occupies an advisory role in the Beny Steinmetz Group Resources (BSGR) Board of Directors.

BSGR is a natural resource company active in the fields of oil & gas, mining, metal and power headquartered in the island of Guernsey.

Steinmetz and billionaire George Soros, once business partners, parted company in the 1990s over a Russian business deal gone sour.

In 1997, he decided to get away from Antwerp and diamonds and left Belgium to settle in Israel.

In 1997, he founded STI Ventures NV, a venture capital firm that invests in start-up companies in Israel.

In 1999, he was the owner of Tucows.

Koidu Holdings, which formerly operated as a joint venture, has been wholly owned by the BSGR company since 2007.

In 2007, Steinmetz "was forced to abandon plans for a $580 million share sale in London for his Cunico Resources vehicle."

A now-defunct company, of which he was a founder and shareholder, Nikanor plc, listed in London, was acquired by Katanga Mining in 2008.

Through his company called Scorpio, he owns real estate in Kazakhstan, Russia, and Eastern Europe.

In 2013 Steinmetz was falsely accused by French newspaper Le Canard Enchainé of hiring French, Israeli and South African mercenaries to topple the government of Guinea.

Steinmetz sued the newspaper for libel.

In March 2014, the Swiss daily Le Temps reported that Beny Steinmetz had sold shares in the Steinmetz Diamond Group (SDG) to his brother Daniel.

In March 2015, BSG Capital owned a 16% share of Gabriel Resources.

As of March 2015 BSG Capital, a subsidiary of BSGR, held a 16% share in Gabriel Resources Ltd.

In June 2016, it was reported that BSGR had divested itself of most of its holdings in Cunico Resources, in favor of International Mineral Resources, with which it had ownership of FENI Industries in a joint venture.

As late as 2017, Steinmetz reportedly owned Cunico Resources which operates in North Macedonia and Kosovo, as well as Canada-based Gabriel Resources, a gold-mining company seeking (unsuccessfully thus far) to reopen a mine in Romania.

In 2017 Cunico Resources, which was based on The Netherlands, requested arbitration with North Macedonia at the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes over its FENI Industries property in Kavadarci.

The arbitration "Claims arising out of the alleged interference by the Government in the claimant’s planned sale of FENI Industries, which allegedly led to initiation of bankruptcy proceedings against FENI" was later discontinued, and FENI was sold to EuroNickel Industries.

On 14 August 2017, Steinmetz was arrested as part of a joint investigation by Israeli and Swiss anti-corruption officials over allegations of fraud, breach of trust, bribery, obstruction of justice and false registration of corporate documents with the apparent purpose of money laundering.

He was released to house arrest on 17 August 2017.

In spring 2018, the BSGR went into voluntary receivership "in the face of bribery allegations".

In September 2018, because the paper could not prove the authenticity of the sources, it claimed to cite (the CIA and its French equivalent), the French court of appeals ruled that the newspaper defamed Steinmetz and his company.

In June 2019, two months after losing in the London Court of International Arbitration a $2-billion arbitration against Vale, BSGR sought bankruptcy protection in the U.S. At that time, BSGR sued Soros, alleging a defamation campaign that cost the company its rights to Simandou and at least $10 billion."

In November 2019 Forbes estimated his net worth at $1.1 billion.

In January 2021, Beny Steinmetz was found guilty in a Swiss court of bribing senior foreign public officials and fraud and forgery of corporate documents.

This pertained to the granting of rights to an iron ore mine in Guinea.

He was sentenced to 5 years in prison and a fine of 50 million Swiss francs regarding the Simandu Case He lost his appeal over corruption charges in 2023.

On 14 February 2022 the Brazilian mining company Vale SA dropped a $1.2 billion claim against individuals and entities linked to Beny Steinmetz.