When @jfarchy and I wrote in 'The World for Sale' the story of how Marc Rich inserted himself in the 1980s into a gov-to-gov oil deal between Iran and Burundi, we thought we were telling a commodity deal from a long gone buccaneering era (see below a fragment from the book) | 1/5

To trade oil with Iran and Burundi, Rich created a mysterious outfit called the Compagnie Burundaise de Commerce, (or Cobuco for short), directed by an enterprising employee who went by the pseudonym Monsieur Ndolo | 2/5

It turns out that the heirs of Rich (today's Glencore) were doing the same 40 years later: insert themselves into a similar gov-to-gov oil deal (paying bribes included). The only thing that changed was the countries: this time it was Nigeria and Malawi; the rest was similar | 3/5

According to UK prosecutors (see below), Malawi wasn't planning to refine the oil from Nigeria (and neither was Burundi with the oil of Iran). Both wanted to sell it for cash, via Rich-Glencore. The sweeter part of both deals was they included some *free credit* terms | 4/5

Glencore paid bribes to secure a role on the Nigeria-Malawi deal, profiting from both the access to oil and the sweet credit terms. In total, Glencore transferred $335,920 to its partners and part of the money was used to pay the bribes | 5/5 #xj4y7vzkg" target="_blank" rel="noopener" onclick="event.stopPropagation()">bloomberg.com