Balkan Mining Tycoon Arrested for Alleged Graft

Israeli billionaire Benjamin Steinmetz, who has strong business ties to the Balkans, was detained for questioning alongside three other businessmen on Monday for allegedly using fake contracts to move and launder money in connection with an iron-mining operation in Guinea.

The homes and offices of some of the men were raided by law enforcement officers on Monday morning, according to Israeli newspaper Haaretz.

One of Steinmetz's associates, political advisor Tal Silberstein, who was close to former Romanian president Traian Basescu, former Prime Minister Adrian Nastase and former Prime Minister Calin Popescu Tariceanu, is also among the detained businessmen, according to Israeli media.

Silberstein has also advised politicians in Austria.

Steinmetz, who owns the Cunico Resources ferro-nickel mining company which operates in Macedonia and Kosovo as well as Gabriel Resources, a gold-mining company seeking to reopen a mine in Romania, was also arrested in December 2016 for his suspected role in a sprawling corruption case involving tens of millions of dollars linked to iron exploitation in Guinea.

He denied the charges.

Steinmetz, Silberstein and Israili politician Yitzhak Rabin's former chief of staff Shimon Sheves are wanted in corruption cases involving high-ranking dignitaries in Romania.

They are on trial in absentia in Bucharest for their alleged involvement in a large real estate scam in the northern suburbs of the capital Bucharest.

Romanian organised crime and anti-corruption prosecutors say that the deal between the Israeli businessmen and Prince Paul Philippe of Romania has cost the state some 150 million euros.

According to the indictment submitted to the court in 2016 by anti-graft prosecutors...