THE TRAGIC DESTINY OF MOHAMED MUNSHI

This man is Mohamed Munshi, an Australian citizen. Of Pakistani origin and born and raised in England, his life has been inseparably linked to mining.

He came to Australia in 1987 and began working at the Leinster gold mine in Western Australia. Later, while advancing through companies such as Barrick Mining, Great Central Mines, Ashanti Goldfields, and Johannesburg Consolidated Investments, he became one of the global players in the mining industry.

This man, a geologist by profession, emerged as an investor. After Ivanhoe Mines discovered the massive Oyu Tolgoi deposit in Khanbogd soum, Umnugovi province, the person who played a key role in the campaign to raise the capital needed to bring that deposit into economic circulation was Mohamed Munshi.

Between 2001 and 2006, he flew across time zones on Friedland’s private jet, presenting the Oyu Tolgoi project to global investment funds, pension funds, and investment banks, and raised the first USD 500 million.

Having realized that the vast land left behind by Chinggis Khan was filled with treasures, he established his company, Gobi Coal and Energy, in Mongolia in 2004. He legally obtained official exploration licenses from the Mineral Resources Authority and discovered the Khotgor coal deposit in the territory of Shinejinst soum, Bayankhongor province.

For carrying out this extremely risky exploration work and identifying the reserves, the Mineral Resources Authority officially granted his company, Gobi Coal and Energy, the following mining licenses:

Adag MV-021487,
Baits MV-021488,
Asgat MV-017438,
Adag MV-017057,
Khotgor East MV-017060,
Khotgor West MV-017061,
Baits MV-017062,
Khongor MV-012728,
Shar Khooloi MV-014217,
Shar Khooloi MV-011965,
Zeegt MV-000905.

In order to bring these coal deposits into economic circulation, Mohamed Munshi even managed to meet with members of the super-rich Rothschild family. Investors were saying that they were ready to provide the initial USD 500 million investment needed to bring the deposits he owned into economic circulation.

Then, when he arrived in Mongolia full of joy and excitement, a Mongolian politician summoned him to a meeting at the restaurant of the Chinggis Hotel.

Seeing where he was summoned, you have probably had no difficulty recognizing who summoned him. That politician told Mohamed Munshi: “When I look at the shareholders of your company, they are all foreigners. Mongolian people must also be among the shareholders of a company that will exploit Mongolia’s wealth. The person who will participate on behalf of the Mongolian side will be Baz Chuluunbaatar, the president of Monnis Group.”

In truth, he could not say no. But he did not know that this newly introduced shareholder would become the monster that would swallow up his life’s journey and his lifelong dream.

In 2015, Mongolian law enforcement authorities began pursuing Mohamed Munshi, investigating him on allegations that he had defrauded investors of a large amount of money.

Then, in 2017, after Khaltmaagiin Battulga, a native of Bayankhongor, became President of Mongolia, Mohamed Munshi was immediately arrested. In 2018, a Mongolian court sentenced him to seven years in prison and locked him away.

This man, once a shining figure in the mining sector — a billionaire and an investor — was suddenly accused of a false crime and spent seven years in Prison No. 421 under the General Executive Agency of Court Decision. During that time, he developed multiple serious illnesses, including kidney failure, blocked blood vessels, and an enlarged prostate.

For seven years, the prison authorities fed him food made from animal intestines and offal, with no vegetables at all.

This Muslim man did not hide the fact that, in order to survive in a Mongolian prison, he had faced the harshest ordeal he had ever experienced in his life.

The cell in which he was imprisoned was freezing cold in winter, cold enough to die in, while in summer it was as hot as hell. He told a journalist from The Australian Financial Review that the guards beat him whenever they wanted.

When investor and billionaire Mohamed Munshi emerged after spending seven years in a Mongolian prison, falsely accused of a crime, his company Gobi Coal and Energy, which owned 10 mining licenses, had been seized by Mongolia’s political and business groups.

The name of his company had been changed to “Seker Resources Mongolia” LLC, and the website chig.mn uncovered that among the people linked to the company’s new owners were former President Kh. Battulga, current Prime Minister G. Zandanshatar, and T. Luvsandorj, the elder brother of T. Dorjkhand.

These “robbers” completed their robbery in January 2024, and after stripping him of all his assets, Mohamed Munshi was released in June 2024.

Immediately after his release, Mohamed Munshi tried to leave Mongolia and return to his homeland, but he was not granted that fortune. Even though they had taken from Mohamed Munshi all the wealth that had once attracted USD 500 million in investment and made global investors salivate, they further demanded that he pay USD 13 million in damages and banned him from leaving Mongolia.

Think about this with a clear and sound mind. If all of your 13,000,000,000 tugriks’ worth of assets were seized, and then you were told to pay a debt of 13,000 tugriks, would that be justice?

The robbers know that Mohamed Munshi cannot receive proper treatment in Mongolia. They know that if he leaves Mongolia, he will expose the filth of Mongolia’s political and business groups to the entire world and ensure that no one will ever invest in Mongolia again. That is why, for now, they are keeping him here.

Today, Mohamed Munshi rents a one-room apartment with the tiny amount of money sent to him every month by his family and spends his days in extreme loneliness and despair.

At this rate, he will not survive this winter. You now know who the people are who are holding their breath and counting the days until he dies.

This disgusting case, in which Mongolia openly robbed a foreign investor and falsely convicted him, was exposed in Australia only seven days ago. Very soon, it will be exposed to the entire world. By then, even if we weep blood, it will be too late.

May this man’s tragic story be the end of the vile practice in which robbers rise to state power, while the robbed die in Mongolian prisons.