OCCRP: Lust for Gold

The OCCRP investigation “Lust for Gold”, part of the “Tajikistan: Money by Marriage” project, examines how a UK-listed mining firm paid a “success fee” to a company controlled by President Emomali Rahmon’s son-in-law Shamsullo Sakhibov in exchange for a gold-mining licence. The report states that in June 2016 Rahmon opened the “Pakrut” gold-processing facility in Vahdat district, built by Kryso Resources, a London-traded company with majority Chinese ownership. According to the report, Tajikistan is Central Asia’s poorest country and the Gissar mountain range has long been known to hold significant gold deposits. The report states that Kryso’s 2004 prospectus described it as the first foreign company to obtain a 100% interest in a Tajik mining project, and that after the 2008 financial crisis its Pakrut licence stalled for over a year while the company warned investors its success depended on officials’ “good graces.” The report states that in January 2012 Kryso awarded 8.2 million shares to a Tajik company, LLC Anbat Service, to settle a liability of over $2.7 million described in the annual report as a “success fee in connection with the issue of the Pakrut Project mining licence.” The report states that a prior Deloitte audit of an earlier Brown-linked company had flagged undocumented “cash disbursements” to Tajik nationals, and that a 2008 US diplomatic cable published by WikiLeaks concluded Tajikistan was viewed as a no-go zone for clean foreign investors. Sources cited: OCCRP investigative reporting, Kryso Resources prospectus and annual reports, Deloitte audit, WikiLeaks US diplomatic cables, Edward Lemon of the Harriman Institute.