FALSE CLAIM: Jim Mellon “was an investor in Russian diamonds”

In the above tweet, Carole Cadwalladr of the Guardian claims that Jim Mellon was an “investor in Russian diamonds”.

This is in fact a lie.

• Mellon never invested in Russian diamonds.
• Mellon was a shareholder of a publicly listed fund management group called Charlemagne capital.
• That fund management group managed other peoples money.
• Mellon was not an investor in those funds.
• Mellon had nothing to do with the day to day running of those funds.

The fund management group (Charlemagne), had a fund that invested in Russia. It also had funds that invested in many frontier and emerging markets right across the world, including Iran.

Charlemagne invested in a Russian diamond company, Alrosa.

So did a fund run by George Soros, and many other global investors.

Soros fund invests in Alrosa

Shares in Alrosa were first purchased by a fund run by Charlemagne in 2013, many, many years before the Brexit referendum.