Senate Contender’s Family Profited From ‘Pariah State’ Gold Mine , From Eritrea

Representative Alan Grayson holds an unusual position as a member of the U.S. Congress, an active investor and manager of a hedge fund.
Now that the wealthy Florida Democrat is running for the Senate seat being vacated by Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio, his investments are becoming a more prominent liability.
Last year, Grayson, who was first elected to Congress in 2008, made a passionate speech denouncing trade with dictatorships or countries that employ forced labor.
But weeks earlier, his family cashed in a long-held investment in a mining company that derives its revenue almost entirely from Eritrea, an east African country labeled “a pariah state” by Human Rights Watch in part for its system of forced labor in service of a government that hasn’t held an election since 1991. Grayson said he wasn’t aware of the 2013 report criticizing the company.
Eritrean Mine
Nevsun, which is based in Vancouver, Canada, operates the Bisha gold and copper mine in Eritrea as its main business. It owns a 60 percent interest in the mine; a government-owned company owns the rest.Read more