Monday, November 4, 2024

Controversial Finnish Magnate’s Botswana mining venture attracts international interest

Controversial Finnish mining and media magnate, Ahti Vilppula’s venture into Botswana’s mining industry made international headlines this week.

Vilppula who was at the center of Finland’s huge campaign funding scandal in 2007 registered a mining firm in Botswana two weeks ago.

Although details are still sketchy on the discreet Finnish businessman’s mining interests in Botswana, the Sunday Standard has established that he is a director of MP Mining which was registered with CIPA on 3rd February and is wholly owned by American holding company Max Power.

Curiously the CIPA search engine posts a “No results found using the given search criteria” for MP Mining which is CIPAese for “we do not have MP Mining in our records.

Africa Intelligence, a news site published in French and English that is dedicated to deciphering the current economic and political powers of the African continent ran a head line of Friday that screamed;” Finnish magnate Ahti Vilppula resurfaces in Gaborone after legal tribulations in London.”

The news site which published the story in both English and French went further to state that “having kept a low profile in recent years after a run-in with the British courts, the Finnish media and mining magnate Ahti Vilppula has made a reappearance in …. Botswana.”

Africa intelligence says Vilppula “went off the international radar in May 2019 after missing a hearing at the London High Court, where he had been defending himself since 2017 against a lawsuit brought by Crédit Suisse, who he owed US $ 2.86 million.

Other directors of MP Mining Sumaya Khan, a lawyer at Awuha Khan and Partners who is used to working with Scandinavians in Botswana. She also sits in the boards of First Fintech and Commerce, a company owned by Swedish jeweler Linda Maria Tammerberg, and on the board of local subsidiary of Sweden’s Ampcontrol, which specializes in energy solutions for mining firms. Sunday Standard’s attempts to reach Khan hit a blank.

The third director is Australian Hayden Buswell a consultant geologist with Southern Cross Mining.

The only link between Southern Cross Mining and Botswana is that two years ago the company was incorporated in Botswana as a subsidiary of Galane Gold.

Southern Cross has two gold prospecting licences over an aggregate of about 520 sqkm around Galane’s Mupane property, excluding its current operations and mining licences.

The Sunday Standard could not establish if MP Mining has any links to Southern Cross and Galane Gold.

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