The FBI is investigating in the USA the deaths of two former mining industry executives whom the British prosecution considered potential witnesses in one of the largest corruption investigations in the UK.
This was reported by Financial Times.
44-year-old James Bethel and 45-year-old Gerrit Strijdom were found dead in a motel in Springfield in May 2015 while traveling across the USA.
Just before their deaths, these individuals held senior positions in the African division of the Eurasian Natural Resources Corporation. This is a mining company at the center of a seven-year investigation into cases of corruption and fraud conducted by the UK’s Serious Fraud Office (SFO).
The Springfield police announced that the cause of death was cerebral malaria, referring to tests conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
However, the case was not officially closed and the investigation continues to be handled by the FBI in the USA.
ENRC was founded by three oligarchs from Central Asia who took control of valuable mines in Kazakhstan during privatization after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The company was listed on the London Stock Exchange in 2007 and was included in the FTSE 100 blue-chip index, making it one of the most valuable in the UK. At one point, its value was almost 20 billion pounds sterling.
After the listing, ENRC acquired mines in Congo, Zimbabwe, and other African countries – acquisitions that became the subject of corruption allegations.
In 2013, the SFO launched a criminal investigation into corruption. Later that year, the oligarchs — Alexander Mashkevich, Patokh Shodiyev, and Alijan Ibragimov — delisted the company and moved its headquarters to Luxembourg.
Bethel and Strijdom, South African citizens with extensive experience in the mining industry, were among the high-ranking ENRC officials managing the African enterprise. In 2015, they decided to leave the company.
As noted by FT, SFO investigators intended to interview them as witnesses but did not manage to contact them.
On May 9, 2015, employees of the La Quinta Inn in Springfield discovered both men dead. No signs of violent death were found on the bodies.
But when it was announced that the cause of death was malaria, colleagues of the deceased were skeptical that two people could die from malaria in one night in the same motel. Five years later, their doubts intensified.
Malaria expert from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Sam Wassmer, who examined documents obtained by FT, said that due to numerous factors determining the disease’s progression over many days, "the likelihood of two different people falling ill at the same time and dying in one night is almost certainly zero."
ENRC denies any wrongdoing and in 2019, the company sued the SFO, accusing it of creating a scandal with the corruption investigation.