(IDEX Online) - Dan Gertler, the diamond and mineral billionaire accused of "suspect mining and oil deals", was allegedly behind the payment of $360m in bribes to officials in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).The claim is made in a joint investigation by the Bloomberg financial news website, the Africa Confidential online magazine and the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz."Insofar as is known, this is apparently the largest sum of money any Israeli has ever been suspected of paying as graft," says the report.He is implicated, they say, by documents submitted in his defense in a long-running legal row with Moises and Mendi Gertner, former British business partners with whom he agreed joint mining ventures.An affidavit for Gertler allegedly indicates the ventures would be less profitable than the Gertners expected, because of the need for Gertler's companies to pay for "the goodwill and cooperation" of the Congolese officials.Another document actually details amounts paid to those Congolese officials, who are all given code names, according to the report. The civil society coalition Congo is Not for Sale claimed in May that the DRC stands to lose at least $3.71bn from "suspect mining and oil deals" with Gertler.In 2017 the US Treasury Department imposed sanctions on Gertler, describing him as "an international businessman and billionaire who has amassed his fortune through hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of opaque mining and oil deals in the Democratic Republic of the Congo".The sanctions were lifted by President Donald Trump shortly before he left office in January, and promptly re-imposed by his successor Joe Biden. Gertler, 48, an Israeli citizen who expanded his business interests from diamonds, has always strongly denied corruption allegations against him and insisted he has brought huge investment to the DRC.