Biden Admin Ignores Cartels Trafficking Human Organs

Will someone in the Washington DC please ask Joe Biden or DHS Secretary Mayorkas how many deaths is the right number before the border is closed?

It is not only well know but proven that the cartels have illicit partnerships with the Chinese Communist Party for trafficking narcotics especially fentanyl. Fentanyl kills on average 100,000 Americans per years. But it is worse than we know.

On the Interpol website, the following is posted in part (notice the inclusion of ‘migrants’):

Vulnerable communities

Organized criminal groups profit from the desperation of the unemployed, migrants, asylum seekers and refugees to coerce them into selling an organ. Victims of human trafficking for sexual and labour purposes also find themselves at additional risk.

The techniques used for the recruitment and control of the victims are the same as those used for other types of human trafficking, such as promises of job opportunities abroad, as well as the use of threats and violence.

Most often, victim-donors receive a smaller amount of the money than had been agreed with the recruiter or broker, and in some cases they may not get any of the promised payment. Many victim-donors have suffered post-operative complications and health issues.

The socioeconomic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic is expected to fuel THBOR as it will likely be easier for brokers to coerce vulnerable individuals to sell an organ to improve their economic conditions. This is exacerbated by the fact that legal organ donations, and therefore transplants, have suffered major decreases since the outbreak of COVID-19.

Actionable intelligence

“While trafficking in human beings for organ removal is not a new phenomenon, it is underreported due to the clandestine nature of the crime, combined with a lack of awareness by law enforcement agencies and the deficiency of information sharing channels between the medical and police sectors,” said Cyril Gout, INTERPOL’s Direct of Operational Support and Analysis. More here.

***

Then going back to 2007, Reuters published a series of articles titled the Transplant Trade listing China and Columbia as hotspots for trafficking of human organs. Where is Reuters now exactly as a follow up?

***

How about just as recently as 2020 when the National Institute of Health published much the same titled ‘The Untold Story’?

2020 May; 17(9): 3204.
Published online 2020 May 5. doi: 10.3390/ijerph17093204
PMCID: PMC7246946
PMID: 32380680

Organ Trafficking and Migration: A Bibliometric Analysis of an Untold Story

Abstract

The debate over trafficking of human beings for the purpose of organ removal (THBOR) remains largely absent from policy debates, as its crime is hardly detected, reported and sparsely researched. However, criminal networks continue to exploit vulnerable populations, particularly migrants. To help bridge this gap in knowledge, we employ a bibliometric analysis to examine whether the nexus between organ removal and migration is being addressed by the current academic literature. Our results indicate that (1) research exploring the link between THBOR and migrants is relatively scarce; (2) organ trafficking literature output is largely clustered in a couple of Western countries, and (3) despite the international nature of the topic, most empirical studies on organ trafficking and migration lack representation within the social sciences and humanities. Taken together, our results point to a huge gap on scientific publications between THBOR and migration. Quantitative data is required to lift the current knowledge constraints and better inform policymakers.

Keywords: organ trafficking, migration, health, human trafficking, THBOR, refugees
Why is all of this important? Illegal migration has been a catastrophe across the world for many years and yet no world leaders or organizations seem to address it much less prosecute it especially the United States….how about those pesky ‘American values’? So, Fox News, a news organization that has been dogged in reporting almost alone the crisis at the Southern border, the cartels and the fentanyl deaths, sent investigative reporter Sara Carter on a mission.

Biden slammed for ‘immoral’ open-border policy after human trafficker describes what happens to children

Cartels harvest children’s organs, then fill the corpse with drugs for trafficking, according to one smuggler

At least the Republicans in the House know about it and tried to advance some legislation in 2021. Where are the Democrats as co-sponsors or how come this has not advanced?

H.R.1434 – Stop Predatory Organ Trafficking Act of 2021

SEC. 2. Findings.

Congress finds the following:

The Left leaning think tank, The Brookings Institute published an extensive report on the topic. One take-away in part –>

Vanda Felbab-Brown: What struck me most in my research on China’s role in Mexico’s illicit economies was the intensifying intermeshing of drug trafficking and wildlife trafficking. Chinese criminal groups, suppliers, and consumers increasingly play a significant role in Mexico’s drug trafficking and wildlife trafficking.

In drug trafficking, Chinese brokers are the dominant suppliers of scheduled and non-scheduled, unregulated precursor chemicals for the production of methamphetamine, fentanyl and other synthetic opioids and previously also of finished fentanyl and its analogs. Mexican drug cartels then sell fentanyl and methamphetamine throughout North America and increasingly beyond. Chinese actors also launder money for Mexican drug trafficking cartels.

Related reading from the DEA

Can’t show any photos, they are too graphic.

 

The indifference is staggering. Ever wonder if there is any reporting of this in the Presidential Daily Briefing? Would it matter?

Carry on…

 

China has Fully Loyalty of Much of America

It does not begin and end with zero consequence of China for all things pandemic….it is much much worse. Consider all the items below and then apply critical thinking on why America is so subservient to the Chinese Communist Party.

The list is hardly complete but here is a good start:

  1. Dr. Fauci –>Source: Adam Hott, who works on the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Clinical Sequencing Evidence-Generating Research group, is also affiliated with the United States Heartland China Association (USHCA). He serves on the controversial group’s education committee, which seeks to “brings together resources in K12 and higher education to apply research, expertise, and new entrants to the workforce to US-China collaboration.”

    The unearthing of the United States Heartland China Association (USHCA) ties to Chinese foreign influence groups follow reports of Chinese Communist Party members and firms buying up American farmland, raising national security concerns among lawmakers.

    In addition to partnering with various branches of the Chinese regime, the USHCA also is “proudly working with” the China-United States Exchange Foundation (CUSEF).

    The organization is an integral component of the Chinese Communist Party’s “United Front,” an effort that seeks to “co-opt and neutralize sources of potential opposition to the policies and authority of its ruling Chinese Communist Party” and “influence foreign governments to take actions or adopt positions supportive of Beijing’s preferred policies,” according to the U.S. government.

  2. Then there is Hunter Biden and the whole Biden family.Source: A grand jury subpoena was issued 17 months before the 2020 election for Hunter Biden’s bank transactions involving the Bank of China, a corruption watchdog has found, raising concerns that damaging material about then-candidate Joe Biden was hidden from voters.

    The order sent by the Department of Justice to JP Morgan Chase bank asked for the records of any international financial transactions for the past five years involving Hunter, his uncle James Biden and former business partners Devon Archer and Eric Schwerin, according to federal documents.

    The anti-corruption nonprofit Marco Polo, founded by former Trump administration official Garrett Ziegler, obtained the filing, which targets the financial ties between the four men and the Bank of China.

    The subpoena was issued by Delaware’s US Attorney David Weiss on May 15, 2019. At the time, Hunter’s father, Joe Biden, was a presidential candidate.

  3. President Joe Biden meets virtually with Chinese President Xi Jinping from the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington, Nov. 15, 2021.source
  4. Perhaps the worst of it all –> and it is a long one…sit back and process as you read it. Source: A new, comprehensive report by the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, titled “Corporate Complicity Scorecard,” reveals what these companies have traded away and how much their Faustian bargain with the CCP has endangered all of us.The report, produced jointly by VOC and Horizon Advisory, evaluates eight well-known American corporations — Amazon, Apple, Dell, Facebook, GE, Google, Intel, and Microsoft. It presents “broad-ranging assessments of the nature of American corporations’ involvement in China” based on a set of indicators, including compliance with Chinese data regimes and supply chain exposure to forced labor risk. The report assigns a letter grade between A to F to the companies, with Facebook and Google receiving the highest score of “B,” while GE, Intel, and Microsoft got the lowest score of “F.”

    According to the VOC report, these American companies’ complicity endangers everyone else for several reasons. It exposes U.S. indus­trial supply chains to China’s forced labor and other human rights atrocities. It empowers a strategic competitor while hollowing out U.S. industrial capacity. It also makes U.S. industry a conduit for the Chinese gov­ernment’s vast information collection (i.e., surveillance programs). Lastly, it makes U.S. industry a channel for Chinese influence and pro­paganda abroad.

    All eight companies’ complicity is also endangering their long-term survival because through the “Made in China 2025” initiative, the Chinese government has been developing domestic competitors, intending to become “self-reliant” in strategically essential technologies. Shockingly, these American companies seem to fail to recognize that their technology transfers and billions of dollar investment in China will end up creating their own eventual replacements in this market.

    Furthermore, some of these companies have engaged “in political lobbying in the U.S. in ways that ultimately serves Beijing’s interests while potentially undermining the values and principles that undergird the western democratic order.”

    Intel Gets an ‘F’

    Intel sent a letter earlier this year to suppliers advising them not to source from Xinjiang, without mentioning either forced labor or genocide committed by the CCP against Uyghur Muslims and other minorities in the region. Still, the company promptly apologized to China after its letter drew backlash from state media and Chinese nationalists.

    The VOC report provides insights into Intel’s engagement in China. The company has a prominent presence in the country, including 17 campuses, at least two production sites, and “a series of innovation and R&D centers across China.” The company has built extensive ties to Chinese government agencies. For instance, the company has partnered with the Chinese Academy of Sciences Institute of Automation (CASIA), a “core contributor to China’s military and military-civil fusion programs.”

    Intel also collaborated with China’s Ministry of Industry and Information (MIIT), a “leading state entity charged with implementing China’s military-civil fusion national strategy.” The report finds “Intel executives continue to engage with MIIT rep­resentatives in fields relevant to military-civil fusion, even as tensions between the US government and China escalate and risks posed by Beijing’s military-civil fusion strategy become more evident.”

    Intel’s partnership with Chinese companies is also problematic. The company is a long-time major supplier to Hikvision, a Chinese state-owned manufacturer and sup­plier of surveillance equipment. The two companies launched a com­prehensive partnership in artificial intelligence in 2017.

    After the Trump administration added Hikvision to the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Entity List and barred it from buying restricted components from the United States in 2019, former Intel Chief Executive Officer Bob Swan reportedly vowed to use “Intel’s global operating capabilities to reduce the impact on customers.” Later that year, several U.S. technology firms, including Intel and Microsoft, issued a joint statement “calling for then-President Trump not to impose tariffs on Chinese lap­tops and tablets.”

    The VOC report also finds that “Intel technology was being used in surveillance systems in Xinjiang” and “Intel had invested in and provided technologies to a company embedded in Xinjiang and supported by the Chinese Ministry of Public Security.” Intel essentially plays a critical role in enabling the Chinese government to build a digital prison in Xinjiang and monitor every move by millions of Uyghur Muslims.

    Microsoft Also Gets an ‘F’

    Microsoft also received a grade of “F.” The VOC report finds that “Microsoft has a significant, and growing, network of innovation centers, data centers, joint laboratories, and other technology hubs in China. Many of these have been established in partnership with the Chinese government or gov­ernment-tied entities.”

    For example, Microsoft has built at least 10 data centers in China, all operated by a local Chinese partner, 21Vianet. In compliance with China’s data security laws, all data collected at these centers are accessible to the Chinese government.

    Microsoft has also partnered with Chinese companies to tailor its products to meet the Chinese government’s needs. A 2021 report from Top10VPN found that many Chinese government surveillance and censorship organs “use Windows prod­ucts in their security and surveillance systems.”

    Like Intel, Microsoft has established strategic cooperation agreements with Chinese companies that “the US government has identified as tied to the Chinese military or as an export restriction concern.” For example, one of Microsoft’s strategic partners is Dajing Innovations (DJI), a leader in civilian drones and imaging technology. The Trump administration put DJI on the Department of Commerce’s sanctioned Entity List in 2020. Microsoft has yet to sever its business ties with DJI.

    At least three Chinese suppliers of Microsoft were found to involve forced labor in Xinjiang. However, Microsoft has maintained business relationships with these suppliers. In addition, the company continues to invest in R&D in China “even as tensions between the US and China escalate—and Beijing’s technological ambi­tions have become broadly recognized as posing risks for global human rights and security.”

    Why GE Received an ‘F’

    GE is the third company that receives an “F.” Similar to Intel and Microsoft, GE’s many partnerships in China “appear to involve technology-sharing, including with core players in China’s military, military-civil fusion, and surveillance system. Those partnerships have also granted military-tied Chinese players positions of leverage in GE’s supply chains, critical to both America’s national security and its manufac­turing base.”

    Since GE is also a key contractor for the U.S. Department of Defense, these partnerships and technology-sharing agreements are especially troubling.

    Losing Strategy

    The VOC report gave the other five companies slightly better scores than “F.” But make no mistake, all of these companies have similarly “supported Beijing’s military modernization, the surveillance state, and human rights violations in exchange for access to China’s market.”

    As the great power competition between the U.S. and China intensifies, corporations cannot pretend this is business as usual. Whether they like it or not, corporations are increasingly at the center of the Sino-U.S. geopolitical conflict. These American companies should never forget what made them successful in the first place.

    In the words of former Attorney General William Barr, American companies are beneficiaries of “the American free enterprise system, the rule of law, and the security afforded by America’s economic, technological, and military strength.” China’s authoritarian regime is not a “hospitable one for institutions that depend on free markets, free trade, or the free exchange of ideas,” Barr said.

    The VOC scorecard reminds these American companies that acquiescing to Beijing is a lose-lose strategy and will endanger all of us in the long run.

    Microsoft in ChinaBack in 2007, Bill Gates told Fortune that he expected China to be Microsoft’s biggest market, “though it might take 10 years.”. Those comments were made during a visit to Beijing when Gates was awarded an honorary degree from Tsinghua University and met with four members of China’s ruling Politburo. More detail

America is Still Being Fleeced by Coddling China

Surfing? Really?

According to a recent grant notice, the United States’ Mission to China is funding a $25,000 grant to “carry out a program to engage Hainan’s surfing community and local environmentally active social media influencers on the topic of climate change and impacts to ocean environments.” It’s your tax dollars at work in the surf of the South China Sea.

That’s right. While Beijing continues its military buildup in the South China Sea, the Biden Administration is making sure surfers enjoy the waves!

The grant describes the ideal program activities to include:

  • “one surfing clinic, environmental protection activity and climate discussion led by popular Chinese surfing athletes and including U.S. Consulate staff and local environmentally active social media influencers”;
  • “one video product based on the surfing clinic, activity and discussion that includes messaging on the connections between local ocean communities, climate change and the importance of global climate action”;
  • “one million post views on multiple Chinese platforms of final video product after being shared by program participants.”

SMH..but there is more.

Remember John Podesta? Well he has a brother….Tony and where Tony goes, so goes John.

Well-connected Democrat Tony Podesta raked in $1 million last year lobbying the Biden White House on behalf of Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei.

Podesta started work for Huawei in August as the company attempts to free itself of Trump administration-rallied restrictions on the brand.

https://www.sott.net/image/s30/615464/full/1_Tony_Podesta_Huawei_Huawei_A.jpg

Podesta’s brother is Democratic Party bigwig John Podesta — who was Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign chairman after working as a White House adviser to President Barack Obama and as Chief of Staff to President Bill Clinton.

According to public disclosure forms released this week, Tony Podesta earned $500,000 lobbying the “Executive Office of the President” on “Issues related to telecommunication services and impacted trade issues” in the fourth quarter of 2021.

In the third quarter of 2021, Podesta disclosed another $500,000 from Huawei to lobby the “White House Office” on “Issues related to telecommunication services and impacted trade issues.” Huawei, a giant tech operation has been blacklisted. Who approved this?

While there remains historic issues with all things China including that Wuhan Lab China virus thing, the Biden administration seems not to care at all about China buying up commercial and residential real estate around the country.

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is continuing its U.S. agricultural takeover, buying hundreds of thousands of arable acres across the nation. The purchase of U.S. land is part of the CCP’s food security initiative, posing a significant threat to food and national security for the American public. Republicans appear willing to confront the risk by introducing amendments to H.R. 4356 and 2022 Agricultural Appropriations bill to limit land ownership and tax incentives for foreign investors.

One large purchase that was tracked was made by a Chinese billionaire named Sun Guangxin and his company GH America Energy LLC, a subsidiary of China’s Guanghui Energy Company. Sun spent $110 million purchasing 140,000 acres in a Texas county near the Mexico border and Laughlin Air Force Base.

The land was set aside for the owner to build a wind-farm to feed into Texas’ electricity grid. Known as Blue Hills Wind development, local ranchers, politicians, and the US Military were quick to note the proximity of the development as a serious risk for multiple threats from hostile actors.

The wind-farm development was only 70 miles from Laughlin, raising concerns of potential efforts to spy or “otherwise interfere with US flight training.” Military outlets further noted that the power supply to the Air Force base could be vulnerable should the development go ahead.

In 2017, ChemChina, a Chinese state-owned enterprise, acquired Syngenta for $43 billion. While mainstream news media argue that the takeover was a bad deal for China, it offers significant long-term leverage over global and domestic food production.

Syngenta is the world’s largest crop protection maker and third-largest seed supplier. The now CCP-backed company operates in 16 different states, invests in agricultural research and development every year, and employs more than 4,000 Americans in 41 states, according to Newsweek.

Despite America suffering supply chain shortages, leaving shelves bare, the Biden’s Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack continues to build strong ties with the CCP. Vilsack’s efforts in support of China came after reports surfaced of China’s land purchases posing a significant threat to American national security. source

 

Chinese Military Aggression Towards Taiwan is Escalating, Biden Ignores

A small congressional delegation arrived in Taiwan last week to assess the defense conditions and operations in Asia. It is remarkable however that prior to the departure, the Chinese embassy in Washington DC sent an email demanding the trio be cancelled. Imagine that…our elected officials are supposed to comply to the Chinese Communist Party and their demands?

In part from Axios:

  • Six Republican lawmakers who visited Taiwan earlier this month to meet with Tsai and other Taipei officials faced similar calls from Beijing’s embassy in Washington, per Foreign Policy.
  • Rep. Mark Takano (D-Calif.), the House Veterans’ Affairs chair, and leader of the delegation to Taiwan, praised Taiwan to Tsai as a “democratic success story, a reliable partner and a force for good in the world,” in comments that are sure to further anger Beijing, per Reuters.

“Under [Tsai’s] administration, the bonds between us are more positive and productive than they have been for decades. Our commitment to Taiwan is rock solid and has remained steadfast as the ties between us have deepened. Taiwan is a democratic success story, a reliable partner and a force for good in the world.”

— Rep. Takano

The big picture: Takano, Slotkin and Reps. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.), Colin Allred (D-Texas) and Sara Jacobs (D-Calif.) were in Taiwan to discuss matters including regional security, U.S.-Taiwan relations “and other significant issues of mutual interest” with Taipei officials, per a statement from the American Institute in Taiwan, the de facto embassy.

  • Slotkin tweeted Thursday, “The auto industry’s largest supplier of microchips is here in Taiwan, so supply chain issues will most definitely be on the agenda.”

Background: The Chinese government has in recent months escalated military and political pressure in its claims over the island, which separated from China in 1949 amid civil war.

Go deeper: Taiwan among 110 participants invited to Biden’s “Summit for Democracy”

Meanwhile, as a response to the trip, China decided to once again threaten the region with 27 aircraft invading a ‘buffer zone‘.

Taiwan’s defense ministry says its air forces were mobilized to warn off 27 Chinese warplanes. The incursion into Taiwan’s air defense zone included 18 fighter jets, five nuclear-capable bombers and a refueling aircraft.

Taiwan’s defense ministry said Sunday the island’s air force had scrambled fighter jets to warn off 27 Chinese aircraft that had entered its air defense identification zone (ADIZ) while missile systems were deployed for monitoring purposes.

Taiwan’s ADIZ is not the same as its territorial air space but instead is self-declared airspace that is monitored for national security purposes.

The latest ratcheting up of tensions comes on the heels of a US Congressional delegation to the island, the second this month in support of Taiwan.

China has vowed to take back Taiwan by force if necessary.

Beijing disapproves of anything that lends international legitimacy and recognition to the government in Taipei and registered its disapproval of American lawmakers visiting the island.

Taiwan Scrambles Fighters to Warn Off Chinese Aircraft as ...

What happened in Taiwan’s ADIZ?

The Chinese air force sent 18 fighter jets, five nuclear-capable H-6 bombers and a Y-20 aerial refueling jet, suggesting China may have refueled mid-flight. The Chinese military is still working on its mid-air refueling capabilities as it seeks to project power around the globe.

In the map provided by the Taiwanese defense ministry, the H-6 bombers and six of the fighter jets flew south of Taiwan into the Bashi Channel separating Taiwan from the Philippines before steering out into the Pacific and returning to China.

Taiwan has complained for months of incursions into its ADIZ by China’s air force, usually in the southwestern part near the Pratas Islands which it controls.

Why are tensions high between Beijing and Taipei now?

On Friday, a spokesperson for the Eastern Theater Command of the People’s Liberation Army said the Chinese military carried out “naval and air force combat readiness patrol in the direction of the Taiwan Strait.”

Hunter’s Deal with China on Cobalt, Slaves and Human Rights Violations

It is not just about batteries for electric vehicles, it is really all batteries and the Obama/Biden administration allowed this nefarious deal to happen.

The Biden family began gifting China with anything it wanted and it continues now in the Biden presidency.

Congo and the cobalt mines employ slaves….even child slaves. so, let’s begin here shall we?

Google parent Alphabet, Apple, Dell, Microsoft and Tesla won’t have to face a class action suit claiming the tech giants bear responsibility for the alleged use of child labour in Congo to mine cobalt, a key ingredient of batteries in electric cars and consumer electronics, a federal court in Washington ruled Tuesday.

An NGO called International Rights Advocates launched the suit in December 2019, on behalf of more than a dozen families of children killed or hurt in the artisinal cobalt mines in the Congo, responsible for more than two-thirds of global production of the metal. source

If the whole world wants cobalt, and all the cobalt is in Congo, why are  people in the country dying of hunger?

The president’s son was part owner of a venture involved in the $3.8 billion purchase by a Chinese conglomerate of one of the world’s largest cobalt deposits. The metal is a key ingredient in batteries for electric vehicles.

NYT’s: An investment firm where Hunter Biden, the president’s son, was a founding board member helped facilitate a Chinese company’s purchase from an American company of one of the world’s richest cobalt mines, located in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Mr. Biden and two other Americans joined Chinese partners in establishing the firm in 2013, known as BHR and formally named Bohai Harvest RST (Shanghai) Equity Investment Fund Management Company.
The three Americans, all of whom served on the board, controlled 30 percent of BHR, a private equity firm registered in Shanghai that makes investments and then flips them for a profit. The rest of the company is owned or controlled by Chinese investors that include the Bank of China, according to records filed with Chinese regulators.
One of BHR’s early deals was to help finance an Australian coal-mining company controlled by a Chinese state-owned firm. It also assisted a subsidiary of a Chinese defense conglomerate in buying a Michigan auto parts maker.
The firm made one of its most successful investments in 2016, when it bought and later sold a stake in CATL, a fast-growing Chinese company that is now the world’s biggest maker of batteries for electric vehicles.
The mining deal in Congo also came in 2016, when the Chinese mining outfit China Molybdenum announced that it was paying $2.65 billion to buy Tenke Fungurume, a cobalt and copper mine, from the American company Freeport-McMoRan.
Glencore to Reopen One of World's Biggest Cobalt Mines in Congo - Bloomberg
As part of that deal, China Molybdenum sought a partner to buy out a minority stakeholder in the mine, Lundin Mining of Canada. That is when BHR became involved.
Records in Hong Kong show that the $1.14 billion BHR, through subsidiaries, paid to buy out Lundin came entirely from Chinese state-backed companies.
China Molybdenum lined up about $700 million of that total as loans from Chinese state-backed banks, including China Construction Bank. BHR raised the remaining amount from obscure entities with names like Design Time Limited, an offshore company controlled by China Construction’s investment bank, according to the Hong Kong filings.
Before the deal was done, BHR also signed an agreement that allowed China Molybdenum to buy BHR’s share of the mine, which the company did two years later, the filings show. That purchase gave China Molybdenum 80 percent ownership of the mine. (Congo’s state mining enterprise kept a stake for itself.)
By the time BHR sold its share in 2019, Mr. Biden controlled 10 percent of the firm through Skaneateles L.L.C., a company based in Washington. While Chinese corporate records show Skaneateles remains a part owner of BHR, Chris Clark, a lawyer for Mr. Biden, said that he “no longer holds any interest, directly or indirectly, in either BHR or Skaneateles.” The Chinese records show that Mr. Biden was no longer on BHR’s board as of April 2020. Mr. Biden did not respond to requests for comment.
A former BHR board member told The New York Times that Mr. Biden and the other American founders were not involved in the mine deal and that the firm earned only a nominal fee from it. The money, the former board member said, went into the firm’s operating funds and was not distributed to its owners.
It is unclear how the firm was chosen by China Molybdenum. Current executives at BHR did not return emails and phone calls seeking comment. “We don’t know Hunter Biden, nor are we aware of his involvement in BHR,” Vincent Zhou, a spokesman for China Molybdenum, said in an email.
A dozen executives from companies involved in the deal, including Freeport McMoRan and Lundin, said in interviews that they were not given a reason for BHR’s participation. Most of the executives also said they were unaware during the deal of Mr. Biden’s connection to the firm.
Paul Conibear, Lundin’s chief executive at the time, said it was made clear that China Molybdenum was leading the transaction even though the buyer of Lundin’s stake was BHR.
“I never really understood who they were,” Mr. Conibear said of BHR.
When the mine was sold, Mr. Biden’s father was near the end of his term as vice president. In the run-up to the 2020 presidential election, Hunter Biden’s business ties in China were widely publicized.
But BHR’s role in the Chinese mine purchase was not a major focus. It has taken on new relevance because the Biden administration warned this year that China might use its growing dominance of cobalt to disrupt America’s retooling of its auto industry to make electric vehicles. The metal is among several key ingredients in electric car batteries.
When asked if the president had been made aware of his son’s connection to the sale, a White House spokesman said, “No.”