FBI investigates deaths of South African men found dead during Route 66 trip

The FBI is investigating the deaths of two former South African mining executives found lifeless in a hotel in Springfield, Missouri, during a Route 66 trip in 2015.

Initial reports indicated Gerrit Strydom, 45, and James Bethel, 44, died of cerebral malaria before their bodies were found in separate rooms at La Quinta Inn, according to an investigator from Greene County medical examiner’s office and tests by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

According to the Financial Times (subscription required):

But as revealed in the forthcoming book “Kleptopia: How Dirty Money is Conquering the World,” autopsy reports and CDC records show that the chances the two men died of malaria were “almost certainly nil”, according to a leading expert who analysed them.
For reasons a spokesperson refused to reveal, the Springfield police never formally closed the case. In May this year a police spokesperson referred further inquiries to the FBI, “as they have taken over the investigation of this case”. FBI agents had already been looking into the case, according to two people briefed on it, including taking away some of the men’s personal effects.

British investigators saw Strydom and Bethel as potential witnesses in a lengthy bribery and fraud probe of Eurasian Natural Resources Corp. Three Central Asian oligarchs founded the company after they seized control of mines in Kazakhstan after the collapse of the Soviet Union. ENRC also acquired several mines in Africa.

Strydom and Bethel, both senior executives at ENRC, left the company shortly before their Route 66 trip. British investigators had been in contact with Bethel shortly before their journey to the U.S.

The duo began to feel ill during the flight from Johannesburg to Amsterdam to Chicago but continued to rent Harley Davidson motorcycles for the cross-country trip on the Mother Road after they arrived in the Windy City.

A malaria expert who examined autopsy results said the only way the men could have died the same night of the same disease was if they had been bitten by the same mosquito. A CDC genetic examination eliminated that possibility.

ENRC has denied wrongdoing. 

(Hat tip to The Daily Beast; an image of an FBI patch by Patch Collector via Flickr)

5 thoughts on “FBI investigates deaths of South African men found dead during Route 66 trip

  1. And today we have a Russian opponent of Vladimir Putin lying in a coma in a German hospital. He too fell during a flight.

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