TYCOONS TYRANT THREATENS NETS DEAL:
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A New Jersey congressman says he will demand a government inquiry into Mikhail Prokhorov, the Russian billionaire poised to buy the New Jersey Nets, for his extensive business dealings in Zimbabwe -- a bombshell that could blow up the $200 million team deal and threaten the future of Brooklyn's Atlantic Yards, The Post has learned.
Democratic Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr., a member of the powerful Ways and Means Committee, wants to know if companies controlled by Prokhorov in Zimbabwe violate federal rules that forbid American citizens and companies, and subsidiaries set up in the United States, from doing business with brutal strongman Robert Mugabe, his regime or associates.
"This is disgusting," Pascrell said. "Obviously, the Board of Governors of the NBA didn't do their job properly when they vetted this deal."
He said the project received tax-exempt bonds.
"It's being financed partly by the taxpayer, and the public has a right to know," he said.
Prokhorov's Renaissance Capital investment bank has interests in the Zimbabwean stock exchange, banks, a cellphone company, mining and a swanky, private big-game reserve. The company is intertwined with Onexim, the $25 billion Prokhorov-controlled investment fund behind the deal to bring the struggling NBA team to Brooklyn.
Pascrell said he will ask the Treasury Department, which oversees the sanctions, to investigate Onexim. In 2008, Onexim became a 50 percent owner of Renaissance Capital, which has been actively investing in Zimbabwe since 2007.
According to its Web site, Renaissance Capital has offices in Manhattan and was the financial sponsor of an economic forum in the Zimbabwean capital of Harare that provided foreign investors special access to government ministers in June 2009 -- which experts say is a violation of the sanctions.
In February, the company's Africa-based CEO, Andrew Lowe, participated in a business panel with a Zimbabwean official banned from entering the United States.
"Looks like sanctions-busting to me," said Usha Haley, an expert on US sanctions at the Economic Policy Institute.
She said companies find administrative loopholes, which include setting up a web of corporations, to get around the sanctions.
"It looks like this company is setting up administrative layers that are obfuscating the effects of the sanctions. It's done all the time," she said.
If the department steps in to block the Net deal, it could cause major problems for developer Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards development project.
The plan is already being held up by a handful of holdouts battling eminent-domain evictions from their Brooklyn homes and businesses. Two long-shot lawsuits remain in play -- one that argues some eviction notices were issued before the court gave the go-ahead to seize their property, and another that contends Ratner's plans so radically changed that the condemnation process must start all over again.
These delays have stalled the NBA's vote this coming Friday on Prokhorov's purchase of the Nets. Thursday, the league abruptly announced it was putting off the vote until the state of New York can take full possession of the arena site.
Prokhorov is seeking a majority stake in the Nets and a 45 percent stake in the Barclays Center arena, future home of the team and centerpiece of the Atlantic Yards plan.
The 44-year-old Russian would also become the first non-North American owner of an NBA team. When he came forward in September to buy the NBA's worst team, he was widely regarded as the savior for Ratner's long-delayed development dream.
Prokhorov's estimated worth is more than $13 billion. The 6-foot-8 bachelor is a former amateur basketball player who leads a lavish lifestyle.
NBA Commissioner David Stern recently told "60 Minutes" that Prokhorov passed a background check and "nobody has come up with any reason why he shouldn't be an NBA owner."
"Mr. Prokhorov went through a very extensive and stringent vetting process," a league spokesman told The Post yesterday. "The background and financial investigations have been completed, and there was nothing that was disclosed that would cause us not to move forward with his application for Nets ownership."
But a spokesman for Renaissance Capital in Moscow told The Post that the question of Prokhorov's dealings in Zimbabwe did not come up during the NBA security checks.
The United States slapped sanctions on Zimbabwe in 2003 in response to gross human-rights abuses and government-backed land grabs. Sanctions were strengthened by President George W. Bush in 2008.
The State Department's 2009 human-rights report, released last month, detailed state-sanctioned torture and politically motivated killings by government agents linked to Zanu-PF, Mugabe's party.
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