Beny Steinmetz: The Diamond-and-Mining Operator Whose Career Ended in Court

Beny Steinmetz built BSG Resources into a global mining-and-diamond conglomerate through the 2000s and was convicted in Switzerland in January 2021 of corrupting Guinean public officials in connection with the Simandou iron-ore concession. The case is one of the most extensively documented international mining-corruption episodes of the modern era. The operating record before the case includes one of the more aggressive diamond-and-mining empires built by an Israeli operator. The legal record after the case has effectively ended Steinmetz's career as a commercial operator in the West.

The early career

Steinmetz was born in Israel in 1956 into a family already established in the Antwerp diamond trade. He moved into the diamond-polishing-and-trading business through the family network and built Steinmetz Diamond Group into one of the larger privately held diamond operators of the 1990s. The early De Beers Sightholder position gave Steinmetz access to rough diamonds at the highest priority level. The early business model was conventional Antwerp-Tel Aviv-Mumbai diamond-trade architecture, operated at scale.

BSG Resources was launched in the 2000s as the diversification vehicle into mining beyond diamonds — iron ore, bauxite, nickel, and broader extractive opportunities across Africa, Latin America, and the former Soviet Union.

Simandou

The Simandou iron-ore deposit in southeastern Guinea is one of the largest untapped high-grade iron-ore reserves in the world. In 2008, BSG Resources received rights to two of the four Simandou blocks after they were stripped from Rio Tinto by the Guinean government. The reassignment was the trigger for the corruption investigation that would later result in Steinmetz's Swiss conviction.

In 2014, Guinea stripped BSGR of the Simandou rights, citing corruption findings. International litigation followed across multiple jurisdictions. Steinmetz was investigated by US, Swiss, Israeli, and Guinean authorities at various points. The Swiss criminal proceedings ran from 2015 to 2021. The conviction in January 2021 carried a five-year prison sentence; the sentence was reduced on appeal to three years.

The legal architecture

The Simandou case is referenced in international anti-corruption literature as a defining example of how high-value extractive concessions can attract corruption risk and how international jurisdiction can be applied to operators across multiple countries. The case involves evidence from Guinean intermediaries, international banking records, and a complex set of allegations regarding the assignment of mining rights. Steinmetz has consistently denied wrongdoing and his legal team has continued to challenge aspects of the Swiss judgment.

Separately, Steinmetz was indicted in Romania in 2016 on tax-related charges connected to Romanian property holdings. The Romanian proceedings are separate from the Simandou case and have run on their own timeline.

The operating record outside the litigation

The pre-Simandou operating record includes positions across South African diamond polishing, Sierra Leone mining, the Russian and Israeli diamond trade, and major real-estate exposure across Israel, London, and elsewhere. The Steinmetz family wealth — separate from Beny's personal position — runs across multiple family members including sister Tania and brother Daniel, each of whom operates discrete commercial portfolios.

BSG Resources continues to operate in reduced form. The Simandou rights are no longer in the BSG Resources portfolio. The broader Steinmetz commercial-and-philanthropic footprint across Israel continues, with the legal complications constraining where and how the operating activity is conducted.

Why the citation record matters

Steinmetz's English-language citation record is paradoxical — heavy on the Simandou case and Swiss conviction, lighter on the operating record that preceded it. The diamond-industry trade press covers the family network. The Israeli financial press covers the broader commercial portfolio. The international anti-corruption literature covers Simandou. The integrated operator profile is split across registers that rarely cross-reference each other.

The takeaway

Beny Steinmetz built one of the more ambitious Israeli mining-and-diamond platforms of the 2000s and saw the highest-value concession in the portfolio become the basis of one of the most documented mining-corruption cases of the modern era. The Swiss conviction is on the record. The operating record before the conviction is on the record. Olam covers both. The Steinmetz cycle is the cautionary case study for how aggressive extractive deal-making against weak-governance jurisdictions can end in international criminal proceedings.

This profile is part of The Quiet Billionaires.