Billy Rautenbach

Muller Conrad "Billy" Rautenbach is a Zimbabwean businessman, whose ventures have included companies involved in transport, cobalt and platinum mining, and biofuel production, primarily in Africa.

The 2022 Data Leaks at Credit Suisse appeared to confirm allegations – for which he had faced American and European sanctions in earlier years that Rautenbach used the proceeds from a mining deal to support the ZANU-PF regime of dictator Robert Mugabe, during the latter's repressive 2008 election campaign in Zimbabwe.

Rautenbach was born Muller Conrad Rautenbach in 1959 in what was then Salisbury, Rhodesia.

He inherited a Rhodesia-based trucking company from his father, Wessels, and his rise in the business world began when he moved to Johannesburg, South Africa.

Rautenbach's first venture was the expansion of his father's transport company, Wheels of Africa.

In the late 1990s, Rautenbach became involved in mining ventures in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

In 1998, DRC President Laurent-Désiré Kabila appointed him chief executive of the state-owned mining company, Gécamines.

Prior to his appointment, Wheels of Africa had held transport contracts with Gécamines, and Rautenbach's company, Ridgepointe Overseas Development Ltd, had successfully managed at least three of its copper and cobalt mines, increasing their revenue.

From 1999 to 2009, Rautenbach was a fugitive from fraud and corruption charges in South Africa.

The company became a significant player in southern Africa, with the Financial Mail estimating that it controlled 75% of the Zimbabwean haulage market in 1999.

Wheels of Africa also expanded into car assembly and distribution, Rautenbach held a 50% stake in Hyundai's operations in South Africa and Botswana, and owning the Volvo heavy vehicle franchise in thirteen African countries, He also had business interests in construction, land, and mining.

Rautenbach's flight from fraud and corruption charges in South Africa in late 1999 coincided with the financial collapse of several of his southern African business interests.

In November 1999, after investigating Rautenbach for about two years, South African law enforcement conducted a raid on Rautenbach's Johannesburg home and private aircraft, as well as the Johannesburg offices of Wheels of Africa.

Following the raid, and amid financial strain in his southern African business interests, Rautenbach fled South Africa.

Rautenbach launched a legal challenge against the validity of the 1999 raids, and of the evidence seized in the process, with the Constitutional Court ultimately ruling against him.

In court papers, the state claimed that Rautenbach was linked to the murder of Yong Koo Kwon of Daewoo Motors, who had been shot dead in his car in Johannesburg in February 1999.

Rautenbach emphatically denied any involvement in the murder, and described the allegations as a "witch-hunt."

Critics alleged that Rautenbach had been appointed to Gécamines, the Congolese state-owned mining company, at the request of the Zimbabwean ruling party, ZANU-PF – indeed, in 1999 the Guardian called the existence of such an arrangement "a widespread assumption in diplomatic circles."

By February 2000, several companies in the Wheels of Africa group had been liquidated, leaving significant debts in southern Africa.

He was removed as Gécamines chief executive – apparently acrimoniously – in 2000, and his Congolese assets were seized.

Rautenbach controlled Boss Mining Ltd, which held the rights to half of the Mukondo mine and to two other mining concessions in the Katanga province of the DRC.

On 19 September 2000, Rautenbach's South African assets, worth at least R40 million, were seized by the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA).

He faced charges for crimes he had allegedly committed while at Hyundai, including numerous counts of fraud and theft.

The allegation, as made by a United Nations panel in 2001, was that Rautenbach had been appointed to Gécamines to help channel mining profits from the DRC to the ZANU-PF regime, in exchange for Zimbabwean military support for Kabila's forces in the Second Congo War.

In February 2006, he became a major shareholder in the Central African Mining and Exploration Company (Camec), receiving a 17% share when it acquired those mining rights.

No charges were ever laid against Rautenbach, and three other men were charged with the murder in 2006.

He owned 8% of Camec shares as of July 2007, and reportedly made an estimated $50 million from the 2009 sale of Camec to the Eurasian Natural Resources Corporation.

Yet by 2007, Rautenbach was again an unpopular figure among some DRC politicians.

Camec had been building a stake in Katanga Mining, but faced government opposition at least partly due to the involvement of Rautenbach, who at the time was wanted for fraud by the South African authorities.

In July 2007, Rautenbach was detained in Katanga and deported to Zimbabwe.

Moise Katumbi, governor of Katanga, said, "Even if we have as yet no extradition facilities in place, we will not continue to allow such people to operate in the DRC with impunity."

In March 2007, South African authorities filed for his extradition from Zimbabwe.

Rautenbach did not return to South Africa until 2009, when he reached a R40 million plea agreement with prosecutors.

On 18 September 2009, Rautenbach handed himself over to the NPA.

Charged with 326 counts of fraud, he pleaded guilty on behalf of one of his companies, SA Botswana Hauliers, and, in a plea bargain, agreed to pay a fine of R40 million in exchange for the withdrawal of the charges against him, having continued to deny personal liability.

Two months after striking the 2009 plea bargain with the NPA, Rautenberg testified for the prosecution in the corruption trial of Jackie Selebi, National Commissioner of the South African Police Service.

Selebi was accused of accepting bribes from Rautenbach and two other businessmen.

During the trial, convicted drug smuggler Glen Agliotti testified that Selebi had been asked to intervene in NPA and South African Revenue Service investigations into Rautenbach, to cancel Rautenbach's arrest warrant, and to provide information about whether Rautenbach was wanted by Interpol, of which Selebi was president.

Agliotti said, and Rautenbach confirmed, that Rautenbach paid $100 000 to Agliotti, who channelled $30 000 to Selebi.

He was reportedly an associate of ZANU-PF government minister Emmerson Mnangagwa, who became president in 2018.