The U.K. Serious Fraud Office said Thursday it closed its investigation into Rio Tinto (NYSE:RIO) over allegations of corruption in Guinea without bringing charges, after an internal review found it was not in the public interest to continue.
The SFO had focused on suspected bribe payments to secure mining contracts in the Democratic Republic of Congo during 2009-12.
The Australian Federal Police investigation into the case remains ongoing.
The SFO also said it closed a decade-long criminal probe of Kazakh miner Eurasian Natural Resources Corp., citing “insufficient admissible evidence to prosecute.”