[5][6] On April 14, 2013, Frederic Cilins, an agent for Beny Steinmetz's company, was arrested in Jacksonville, Florida, as a result of an FBI investigation that began in January 2013.
The investigation aimed to establish whether potential illegal payments made to obtain mining concessions in Guinea had been transferred to the United States in breach of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which allows U.S. officials to pursue bribery cases abroad.
[7] Cilin's detention followed covert FBI recordings of a series of meetings that allegedly showed he had plotted the destruction of documents which it is claimed could have shown the Simandou exploitation rights were acquired following the payment of millions of dollars in bribes to Guinea government officials.
[17] In May 2020, BSGR filed discovery request documents at the court in New York based on transcripts of conversations with former Vale executives that were obtained by the Black Cube private intelligence company.
[18] BSGR claims that the documents prove that Vale was aware of potential problems with how the rights to develop Simandou had been obtained, but chose to ignore them and proceeded to buy 51% of the iron-ore licenses.
[20] The agreement made BSGR surrender its rights to Simandou but allowed it to maintain an interest in the smaller Zogota deposit while giving Mick Davis, the head of Niron Metals, permission to develop it.
In November 2016, Rio Tinto admitted to paying $10.5 million to François de Combret [fr], a close adviser of President Alpha Condé,[24] in 2011 to obtain rights on Simandou.
In 2017, the Serious Fraud Office (SFO), Britain's anti-fraud regulator, launched an official investigation into Rio Tinto's business and mining practices in Guinea.