At the end of 2020 there was only a few better places in the middle of the economic strudel triggered by Covid-19 than sitting on a gold mine.
In Ghana, the West African country, which once described the Gold Coast of British colonizers, the Bogoso-Prestea-Mine produced 4,000 ounces of the precious metal worth $ 6 million (GBP 4.5 million).
When the gold prices reached record highs, in London Blue International Holdings-a experienced investor in African energy projects, the mine fell for $ 95 million.
Blue International promised “attractive financial returns and effects on the communities and countries in which she works, and the planet as a whole,” said his website.
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It enjoyed the support of a trio of British political heavyweights, including two members of the House of Lord and a Minister of Government.
A few years later, his future seems to be cloudy.
And as the Guardian now reveals, the company seems to be a collateral damage for everyone, from Ghanaian mining workers to a member of the British royal family, a billionaire backer from the GB News TV channel and possibly the British taxpayer.
Political heavyweights
“Blue Gold is a fraud” was a poster when demonstrators who were supported by a brass band were in February 2024 their dissatisfaction.
It was the latest in a series of demonstrations when miners and suppliers in the resource-rich Ashananti gold belt wanted why they saw no advantage from the precious metal that was buried under their feet.
Four years earlier, when Blue International arrived, the future seemed to be promising.
The company had a success story of African investments that extended to 2011 and were controlled by its co-founders Andrew Cavaghan and Mark Green, professional investors with a financial stem tree.
In addition to its new gold mine in Südghana, the company also owned a promising hydropower project in Sierra Leone, a partnership with the government in Freetown.
There was a phalanx from prestige supporters who come from the British political and business elite.
Lord Dannatt, a former head of the British army, served on the BLUE International advisory board. Photo: Murdo Macleod/The Guardian
Lord Dannatt, the former head of the British army, and Lord Triesman, a foreign minister of office with responsibility for British diplomatic relationships in Africa, was a member of the advisory board.
So also Philip Green, who rebuilt his call for the implosion of government -outer carillion, who collapsed during his time as chairman in 2018.
John Glen, a finance minister between 2018 and 2023, held stocks of the company.
The British taxpayer was also significantly exposed. At the beginning of 2024, it turned out that the Ministry of Finance had borrowed the money of taxpayers with 3.3 million GBP last year about the “future fund” via the “Future Fund”.
Lord Triesman was also a member of the Blue International's consulting committee. Photo: Roger Harris/UK Parliament
Glen, Salisbury's deputy in Wiltshire, said that he was not aware of the loan application when he worked in the Ministry of Finance, and there is no indication that he did it.
According to the then Chancellor Rishi Sunak, the future fund was designed to support that “start-ups and innovative companies” survive the pandemic by expanding loans that were converted into equity.
In this case, the money supported a company that has taken valuable minerals from African soil.
Narrin's gold
In mining everyone can appear calm on the surface, even if things fall apart under the ground.
When the money of the British taxpayers in Blue was pumped internationally, the Ghanaian company was on the verge of a financial collapse, the tremors of which was reached from rural West Africa to the city of London.
According to the company information and contemporary reports, the operations at Bogoso-Prestea had been closed several times within two years of Blue International.
The mining workers made the lack of Blue, who owned and operated the mine through a local subsidiary, Future Global Resources (FGR).
The lack of output output from Cashflow and increased costs because the equipment failed or required maintenance after a company application.
FGR did not manage to pay local suppliers, including the Ghanaian electricity company, while the miners were exuberanted out of their pockets according to the submissions and heated up the local protests.
“It had devastating consequences,” said Abdul-Moomin Gbana, Secretary General of the Ghana Minen workers Union (GMWU). He said that the workers' salaries were unpaid for months and hit the community hard.
“The general conditions decreased because they had no income. The communities became practically ghost cities,” he said.
“It became obvious that the mine could not have any possibility if nothing was done.”
Blue Gold refused to answer questions about the claims of unpaid wages and to ask questions to FGR. FGR did not respond to inquiries about comments.
Finally, the Ghanaian government published an ultimatum in 2024. Blue International has to restore the mine or return its rental contract, the right to own and operate the website.
The company tried to issue bonds – a form of IOU – in Ghana to collect cash that is due to the return of the mine to production but was the donation effort.
The directors behind Blue International, Cavaghan and Green restructured the ownership of the debts and moved them to a new unit called Blue Gold, which was also part of and was included in the context of a plan to increase new investments in the USA.
Nevertheless, the Ghana government made its threat to hold back the Bogoso-Prestea rental contract at the end of 2024.
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A legal contestation of the company failed in front of the High Court in Ghana at the beginning of this year and the mine was handed over to a new operator.
From Iraq to Ghana
The difficulties of Blue International were not only felt by Ghanaian miners and the surrounding community.
The British taxpayer's investment in the business now seemed to be threatened. But they were blue -flowered lenders who had the deeper consequences.
In 2021, Blue International borrowed around $ 5 million from Devonport Capital at the beginning of its Ghanaian company, a tailor-made lender who specialized in “high-risk judicialities” and offered short-term loans to relatively high interest rates.
John Glen, a finance minister between 2018 and 2023, held shares in Blue International. Photo: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images
Devonport, his headquarters in Plymouth, was founded by Paul Bailey, a corporate lawyer who had worked out a niche who advises investors in the post -war -IRAK. His partner was Thomas Kingston, who also worked in Iraq, to carry out hostages for the British abroad in Baghdad, where he had observed the horrors of sectarian violence.
In Great Britain, Kingston was better known for his marriage to Lady Gabriella Windsor, a second cousin by King Charles III.
With this experienced and well -networked duo at the top, Devonport and in 2023 achieved input tax of 6 million GBP.
But when the Ghanaian problems of Blue internationally assembled, the interest payments that icit Devonport began.
Another important borrower from Devonport was also excluded at the same time, so that the lender was increasingly unable to repay his own creditors.
Then, in February 2024, the personal tragedy hit.
On February 25, Thomas Kingston died of a gunshot wound with his parents' parents in the Cotswolds. A forensic doctor decided that he had taken his own life.
Devonport fell into the administration a year later from a combination of personal tragedy and the persistent inability to recover its debts.
In a report published by Administrator RG in March, creditors who had awarded Devonport money are listed.
The founder of the Legatum Group, Christopher Chandler, had awarded Devonport money. Photo: Afolabi Sotunde/Reuters
Among them is Christopher Chandler, a New Zealand businessman and founder of the Investment Society Legatum based in Dubai, which finances the British media channel GB News. Chandler rejected a statement.
The creditors also include HM Revenue and Customs, which is due to more than 788,000 GBP.
RG insolvency estimates that of the 49 million GBP, which Devonport was due to, only 11.2 million GBP could be recovered.
A lot depends on whether administrators from Blue International can get around 13.5 million GBP back.
At the beginning of this year, the team behind Blue International completed a combination of $ 114.5 million with a US “Blank check” network company called Perception Capital and hovered the combined company on the US Nasdaq exchange under the name Blue Gold.
Golden future?
What comes next is at best cloudy. The new Blue Gold website describes ambitious plans to reopen the Bogoso Prestea mine.
But Ghana seems to stay with his decision to roam the rental agreement in blue.
The dispute today is the subject of the international arbitration process, as can be seen from a stock market market by Blue Gold and the future of the mine leaves in the air. In an annual report submitted in the USA, Blue Gold admits that the rental contracts may never be returned, which would reduce the value of the company's assets from USD 368 million to less than $ 45 million.
A section on the company website offers little further clarity, in which it is stated: “Subject to the solution of legal disputes with the government of Ghana, the first gold shock is expected.”
The Guardian turned to the foreign office to ask whether the British government had intervened in the name of Blue Gold with the ministers in Accra. The department rejected a statement.
Then then and Triesman rejected a comment. Glen said that he had not discussed the company's Ghanaian dispute with a British government department, an official or diplomat.
Local sources have said that little has changed on site in Ghana, with the operations under a new owner and mining workers still unpaid.
The uncertainty means that for everyone, from local mining workers to members of the British establishment, the dream of blue gold remains a fraud image, tempting out of reach.
The guard approached Blue Gold to get a comment. The company transferred the guardian to its website and shareholder applications, but did not approach questions directly.
Paul Bailey has not returned any inquiries about comments. RG bankruptcy refused to comment.
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