🇨🇩 DRC: Battle for Gold [ #Investigation]
Chapter 1: A Cheerful Retirement
Do you have plans for retirement? Personally, I want to save enough money and then just sit at home growing cabbage. But not everyone finds such a peaceful lifestyle appealing.
For example, businessman and banker, former DRC Vice Minister Victor Kasongo prefers racketeering and asset grabbing. After years of serving his homeland and former Congolese President Joseph Kabila, he decided to pursue something more exciting — and tried to seize the gold assets of the Canadian company Banro (spoiler: it didn’t work out as he planned).
👆 If that kind of leisure activity sounds interesting, let me tell you how it went in practice:
But first, let me introduce you to the Canadian company Banro. Banro was unlucky — the company bet everything on Congo and spectacularly lost in a brutal African roulette.
🔸 Initially, Banro tried to enter the DRC gold mining sector in the late 1990s but failed because of the 1998–2003 war.
🔸 When Banro finally gained access to the Congolese deposits — specifically Twangiza, Namoya, Kamituga, and Lugushwa — it took about ten more years of design and construction work before the Twangiza mine poured its first gold bar in 2012.
🔸 By the time the second mine, Namoya, produced its first gold in 2016, the company was already doomed, though that wasn’t yet obvious. After the opening of Namoya, company workers were attacked by local militias of the Mai-Mai Malaika group, who made money from artisanal mining at the same site.
🔸 Between 2016 and 2019, Banro had to suspend its operations at least three times because of these attacks, and after four Namoya employees were kidnapped in July 2019, Banro declared force majeure and permanently ceased all operations in the DRC.
⏩ Some local insurgents — sure, that happens all the time in these parts. But did that really mean they had to shut down completely? ⏪
🔸Meanwhile, starting in 2014, the company had accumulated heavy debt with its main investors — the American Gramercy Fund Management andthe Chinese Baiyin Nonferrous Group. Due to constant disruptions, Banro became unable to meet its obligations, leading to a restructuring in 2018, after which Baiyin and Gramercy significantly increased their stakes in the company. In the end, the Chinese held about 32% of Banro — an important number, remember it.
🔸 In 2020, after declaring force majeure, Banro initiated a preventive settlement procedure with its local creditors in the DRC. And this is where Victor Kasongo Shomari entered the scene — former Vice Minister of Mines, mining entrepreneur, associate (and possibly distant relative) of ex-President Joseph Kabila, and a senior figure in banks and funds that managed the economic interests of the former president and his entourage.
🔸Kasongo heads the Shomka Group, which, according to him, obtained control over Banro’s assets through a ruling by the Commercial Court of Kinshasa during that same preventive settlement process — or so he claims loudly everywhere.
The funny thing is that before this process, Shomka Group had absolutely nothing to do with Banro - but we'll discuss it in the second part. Scroll down. 👇
Devils Below
⚡️ SEC is changing the rules of the game
At the OECD roundtable, #SEC head Paul Atkins presented a new strategy - Project Crypto
🟡 Onchain capital raising without endless legal barriers
🟡 Allowing the format of "super apps" for trading (trading, staking, lending in one place)
🟡 Most tokens will not be considered securities
🟡 Abandoning "regulation by coercion" in favor of clear and predictable rules
🟡 Emphasizing international cooperation (references to MiCA in Europe)
⚡️⚡️⚡️Unexpected from #SEC: Spot Ethereum ETFs are about to be approved
Exchanges wishing to trade cellular Ethereum ETFs have received an urgent request from the SEC to update Forms 19 b4, Coindesk reports. This may indicate possible approval of applications by Thursday.
However, according to Coindesk, S1 applications also need to be approved to start trading, and SC can consider them indefinitely. One company that spoke with the SEC noted an improvement in the approval process, although it previously believed that the regulator was delaying the deadline.
👌Bloomberg analysts have increased the probability of approval of the spot Ethereum ETF from 25% to 75%. A decision on VanEck is expected on May 23.
Before approving the spot Bitcoin ETF, the regulator asked the exchanges to take similar actions.
SEC Issues alert on Pump and Dump Memecoins
🥳
The #SEC warns investors about fraudulent "pump and dump" memecoins created by celebrities.
📈Sign up on Bybit to trade with me
🇺🇸 American banks have applied to the #SEC for permission to store #Bitcoin
The ability for banks to store $BTC will immediately allow them to start selling their banking products to all consumers — which in turn can lead to a significant increase in demand 🚀
#SEC backs down — tokens have never been securities 😅
The SEC stated that it had never directly referred to tokens as securities. This follows from a footnote to the regulator's lawsuit against the #Binance exchange.
By using the term "crypto asset securities", the Commission does NOT mean a token as such, but a complete set of contracts, expectations and agreements.
The regulator "regrets" any confusion that may have arisen in connection with this and undertakes not to use it anymore.
The $UNI price plummeted by ~16% (7H) after #SEC warned to sue @Uniswap.
Watch out for a possible further price drop as Smart trader 0x335 just deposited 1.25M $UNI ($12.05M) to #Binance at ~$9.66 via 2 wallets in the past hour, realizing an estimated profit of $4.23M (+54.7%)!
Notably, the whale also made $5.76M in total profit from $ETH, $COMP, and $AAVE before.
Follow @spotonchain and set alerts for $UNI at https://platform.spotonchain.com/en/platform/token?name=UNI
💰 .The trial with Ripple has been completed
Ripple (XRP) was fined $125 million for institutional token sales.
The #XRP token itself is not recognized as a security, which means that all claims from the #SEC have been settled.
The four-year-long story has come to an end.
The #SEC's powers are being reduced 😱
A post for those who like to figure it out 🔩
Yesterday, the US Supreme Court limited the SEC's right to hear cases by "full-time judges" (the procedure has been used for cases of securities fraud and financial penalties since the 2008 crisis). The restriction was introduced by 6 votes to 3, there are dissenters.
☝️ Now, in order to consider the case, the SEC must necessarily apply to the federal courts of first instance with the participation of a jury.
❓Why is this important for the crypt?
Some cases "against cryptocurrencies" were considered by the SEC in a "simplified manner," including "incorrect indication of the fund's assets."
Potentially, this restriction will also apply to the definition of assets in the #ETF for cryptocurrency. After all, the SEC believes that a cryptocurrency ETF is an ETF for securities, while the cryptocurrency itself is a commodity/property.
Look at how everything turned around in this election race! The presidents, in pursuit of the votes of the cryptans, are now gradually beginning to put sticks in the wheels of the regulator - the SEC.
Either this is a "circus with horses", or we are really close to masadopshn as never before…
🔹#SEC closes investigation against #Ethereum
The regulator will no longer bring charges, claiming that the sales of #ETH are securities transactions.
This news gave rise to the crypt.
#BTC made a potential retest back to the Major Support zone as expected. Well, this was due to a Positive tweet from Official X account of #SEC on #ETF. This was a fake news as it dropped when came into highlight. Also, mostly event aligns with Technical most of the time. Now today we've to wait and watch for the news to kick in momentum into the market.
By Crypto Australia