Global CST is the defense, consulting, and contracting wing of the Global Group, also recognized under another name, Global N.T.M. The company was sanctioned by the U.S., as was Israel Ziv individually.
Ziv owns and operates the company, and was the former head of the Israeli Defense Forces’ Operations Directorate.
The U.S. government states: “While Ziv maintained the loyalty of senior Government of South Sudan officials through bribery and promises of security support, he has also reportedly planned to organize attacks by mercenaries on South Sudanese oil fields and infrastructure, in an effort to create a problem that only his company and affiliates could solve.”
In an interview with OCCRP, Ziv called the allegations “absolutely, completely false.”
The Israeli businessman said he first came to southern Sudan in 2008 to connect with the region’s leadership. Ziv told OCCRP he returned in 2015 to help the now independent country “recover from the war.”
Costello Garang, a former advisor to South Sudan’s President Kiir said of Ziv: “He came with a catalogue of questions and wanted to learn about the situation in South Sudan…. Are we for unity; are we for separation? If we are for unity, what type of unity? If we are for separation, how are we going to defend it?”
However, Ziv said he told them that the country “cannot grow and recover only based on oil.” Then he came up with the idea for farms, suggesting Israel’s experience in agricultural development as a model.
In December 2015, he said, the South Sudanese government awarded him a $45 million contract to implement the five-year Green Horizon agricultural project — Ziv’s only agricultural venture anywhere, according to the project’s managing director.
Ziv alleges that he didn’t know where the money for the farms originated from and that his relationship with Trafigura consisted of consulting the multinational oil trader on its work with South Sudan’s government.