Credit Suisse, trouble for Rautenbach: he helped rig the elections in Zimbabwe

Robert Mugabe
Former President of Zimbabwe

Part of the money sent by the businessman and used to crack down on the former dictator’s opposition would go through the Swiss bank

Muller Conrad Rautenbach better known as Billy Rautenbach he is the businessman at the center of the storm that has broken out around the Swiss bank Credit Suisse. The wealthy mining magnate from Zimbabwe is suspected of having entered into a financial crime ad hoc offshore with the aim of manipulating a presidential election and fueling deadly violence. And to do so he would use two accounts open to Credit Suisse, a check for 100 million dollars, corresponding to 63.5 million euros, and an autocrat from a strategic country in southern Africa, lo Zimbabwe struggling to get reelected and fund.

This was revealed by the French newspaper Le Monde which points out that performing this operation required a connected character and expert in big political and financial swindles against the background of mining: Rautenbach precisely.

Explains Le Monde: “We are in April 2008: Robert Mugabepresident of the Zimbabwe, for the first time he sees his own seriously questioned close on the country since he came to power in 1987; a few days earlier, he had lost in the first round of the general election, to opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai. But the autocrat is not ready to step aside. ”

“Cheating the polls, repress the opposition and the civilian populationas it intends to do, requires money and Robert Mugabe desperately needs it. Zimbabwe’s economy is on the verge of collapse; the coffers of the national treasury and of the ruling party, ZANU-PF, are empty ”, continues the French newspaper.

It was then that a check for 100 million dollars it came to the table from Mr. Mugabe’s government: it will help finance three months of brutal crackdowns against opposition activists and supporters. More than 180 people killed and at least 9,000 wounds, according to Amnesty International.

“An intimidating campaign that will lead the opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai to resign before the second round, described as a “falsification of the electoral process”, e Robert Mugabe to win a sixth term, putting an end to the country’s hopes of democratization ”, he underlines Le Monde.

But where did the money come from? Already in 2012 the South African investigative site Love Bunghane had revealed that these funds were linked to a dubious express operation of nationalization-privatization of a platinum mine by the government of the Zimbabwe. Now, according to the documents consulted by Le Monde, at the center of this “affair” would be the famous Billy Rautenbach, 49-year-old Zimbabwean businessman close to the regime and the Swiss bank Credit Suisse.