Computers containing emails between Victor Dahdaleh and the former Business Secretary were also seized. More than 30 officers from the police and the Serious Fraud Office were involved in a raid late last year on Mr Dahdaleh's London home in Belgravia and his nearby offices. Along with representatives of the U.S. Justice Department and investigators acting for the government of the Gulf state of Bahrain, they are pursuing allegations of corruption on a massive scale in the international aluminium industry. Mr Dahdaleh, a 65-year-old Canadian-Jordanian, was an agent or go-between for the American metals giant Alcoa in the Middle East. He is under scrutiny because of alleged gross financial irregularities involving an aluminium smelter in Bahrain. The 77 per cent majority shareholder in this venture, which operates under the name of Alba, is the Bahraini royal family, which would explain the determination with which the state is now pursuing the investigation. But what started as a Bahraini civil action has now become an international criminal inquiry and, says a source, 'the Americans are driving the train'. The same source told the Mail: 'Victor Dahdaleh is the focus of an intensifying U.S. Justice Department investigation. 'Everyone suspects that criminal charges will come out of this. And Victor Dahdaleh is at the centre of it.' The SFO and the Americans have been looking at bank accounts in Jersey and the Isle of Man, and shell companies in other offshore havens which were allegedly used to filter bribes and overpayments that might have cost Alba anything up to £50million a year. Big trouble for Mr Dahdaleh, who vigorously denies any wrongdoing. But also problems for Lord Mandelson. Over the past two years, the Bahraini government investigators have drawn up a number of connections between Mr Dahdaleh and the Labour peer, whose memoir The Third Man was published on Thursday. There is no suggestion that the Prince of Darkness has broken any rule or law. But it is clear that he has once again opted for 'Mandy's instinct' - of being drawn to the super-rich. 'Victor, my friend': Mr Dahdaleh is under scrutiny because of alleged gross financial irregularities involving an aluminium smelter in Bahrain Two recent Mandelson quotes spring immediately to mind in the light of this information. The first came in an interview which appeared last weekend to publicise his book. Responding to the accusation that he has a fatal attraction for the super-rich, he crowed: 'Do you know what I say to that? Good for me.' The second quote is from the book itself. Lord Mandelson recalls that when he became a government minister in 1997 he was advised by his then principal private secretary, Rupert Huxter, that 'the rule of thumb had to be to avoid any risk of conflict of interest, or any perception of such risk'. Alas, by then Mandelson had already secured a secret loan of £373,000 from the millionaire MP Geoffrey Robinson. It was to buy a house in the otherwise beyond-his-reach district of Notting Hill; a favour which he chose not to disclose to Mr Huxter at the time of the advice. It led to his first resignation, after allies of Robinson's then boss Gordon Brown, no friend to Mandelson, mischievously disclosed the deal. Lesson learned? Hardly. Since then Mandelson has seemingly gone out of his way to flout Mr Huxter's wise counsel at every turn. His second enforced departure from a Tony Blair Cabinet was as a result of making passport-linked inquiries for the Indian steel billionaire (a 'wealthy businessman' is how The Third Man underplays him) Srichand Hinduja. More recently there have been scrapes involving his young friend, the banking heir Nat Rothschild, and the 'controversial' Russian aluminium tycoon Oleg Deripaska. And now the mysterious Mr Dahdaleh who, it is clear, has been most generous to the well-connected peer. One of the enduring mysteries of Lord Mandelson's chequered career is how he came to acquire quite such a comfortable lifestyle, including a home near Regent's Park which cost him a total of £2.5million in 2006. At the time he was EU Trade Commissioner and the house price was some 16 times his annual salary. Even taking into account a legacy from his recently deceased mother, and the sale of shares and equity from previous property sales, there was a considerable shortfall. And yet the mortgage he took out to cover it was paid off within a year. Readers of The Third Man will be none the wiser about such financial wizardry, save for the Robinson loan. But this week it was alleged that Lord Mandelson had been paid undisclosed consultancy fees by a corporate intelligence firm run by a rich American friend, Richard Medley. Drawing attention: Used to the glare of the media, Lord Mandelson's friendship with Mr Dahdaleh is now attracting the interest of the Serious Fraud Office Lord Mandelson maintains that he never acted as a paid consultant to Medley. He also denies an allegation that while he was out of office in 2002, Lord Mandelson acted as a paid consultant to an oil firm. Mr Dahdaleh, on the other hand, has been a publicly acknowledged benefactor to Policy Network, the think-tank which Lord Mandelson heads. In a 2006 speech, Mandelson referred to Dahdaleh as 'Victor, my friend'. Mr Dahdaleh was also described by the fawning Mandy as a 'business dynamo, a public-spirited figure and a big-hearted personality - all rolled into one'. In the preface to subsequent papers published through the Policy Network, Mandelson paid effusive thanks to Mr Dahdaleh. It will also have been noted that as EU Trade Commissioner Lord Mandelson was an enthusiastic cheerleader for a free trade agreement with the Gulf States. Popular politician: While there is no suggestion that Lord Mandelson is under investigation, it is another example of him enjoying the company of very rich men who stand to gain from decisions that are in his power to make Mr Dahdaleh had much to gain by such a deal, which, for all the peer's efforts, has yet to be secured. There have also been examinations of Mr Dahdaleh's aluminium interests in Europe while Lord Mandelson was the tariff-cutting trade commissioner. Again there is no suggestion of malpractice or that he is under investigation. The inquiry team have merely taken note of the men's association. A source close to the investigation told the Mail: 'The SFO believe there is a link between Dahdaleh and Mandelson. They think Victor's (philanthropic) donations in the UK were largely driven by Mandelson.' Good for me! Lord Mandelson would say. But just how good? It's the same old story. He enjoys the social company and largesse of very rich men who stand to gain from decisions which are wholly or partly in his power to make. Last night a source close to Mr Dahdaleh said: 'All that happened is that Victor did some funding for the Policy Network in the tens of thousands rather than hundreds of thousands. There is not a close relationship with Lord Mandelson.' A spokesman for Lord Mandelson said: 'Peter's relationship with Victor Dahdaleh is purely through his Policy Network. He has no personal financial relationship with him.'Fraud team probes emails that link billionaire international Mr Fixit and Lord Mandelson
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1295400/Questions-Lord-Mandelson-ANOTHER-billionaire.html#ixzz0u10EOvxW
Sunday, 18 July 2010
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