Details of the prosecution case on FDA fraud published in Notícias ahead of trial – AIM report

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Details of the prosecution case on FDA fraud published in Notícias ahead of trial – AIM report

8:27 CAT | 05 Sep 2017

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The massive fraud in the Mozambican government’s Agricultural Development Fund (FDA), which resulted in the theft of 170 million meticais (about 5.3 million US dollars, at the exchange rate of the time), began in July 2012, when the chairperson of the FDA board, Setina Titosse, approved the establishment for lines of credit for the development of small and medium livestock companies.

According to the prosecution case against Titosse and 27 other accused, drawn up by the Central Office for the Fight against Corruption (GCCC), and cited at length in Tuesday’s issue of the Maputo daily “Noticias”, the project was drawn up by another of the accused, Brasilino Salvador, then the head of the FDA livestock department.

Titosse then invited relatives and friends to apply for money from the lines of credit. In 2013, according to the prosecutors, she drew up a cattle breeding and meat marketing project, budgeted at 3.9 million meticais, in the name of her cousin, Lerena Massingue.

In reality no such project existed, and Titosse was just using her cousin’s name. Salvador, and another staff member from the livestock department, Celeste Ismael, certified the fitness of Massingue to run such a project, although they had never visited the project site. Titosse then authorized payment of the money.

By Massingue was never the real beneficiary. Titosse instructed her to transfer the funds to her sister, Julieta Titosse, by a circuitous route. In March and April 2013, Massingue transferred the 3.9 million meticais to the company Multi Press, owned by Dias Mucavele, whoe was the lover of Julieta Titosse. A few days later Mucavele passed on most of the money (3.8 million meticais) to an account in the name of Julieta Titosse.

The GCCC argues that Setina Titosse, and several of her co-accused, then designed much more ambitious plans to raid the FDA’s funds. Other fictitious projects were drawn up, and Titosse’s friend Milda Cossa persuaded three of her brothers, Gerson, Dercio and Binaia Manganhe, to open accounts into which FDA money could be drained.

One of the projects was in the name of Dercio, and was supposedly to expand cattle raising in Chibuto district, Gaza province. When the GCCC investigated, it found that Dercia Manganhe had never set foot in Chibuto, had no experience in cattle raising, and had never drawn up any project.

Similarly, it was claimed that Binaia Manganhe wanted to set up a project in Manjacaze district, also in Gaza, but this too as a complete fabrication, as was a similar project of the third brother Gerson. This was in Chibuto, but, like Dercio, he had never visited the district.

Although the livestock projects did not exist, money poured into the Manganhe brothers’ accounts. Milda Cossa told her brother Dercio transfer three million meticais to Toyota-Mozambique, in part payment of a Toyota Prado vehicle purchased by Titosse. The rest of the purchase price (1.6 million meticais) came out of Cossa’s account, and was also money from the fraud.

Another 1.36 million meticais of the stolen money was used to buy a second vehicle, a Mazda, from the company Ronil Auto. Titosse offered this car to the co-accused Mishel Laryea, whom she later married.

The list of bank transfers is lengthy, and the theft seems to have gone on, bit by bit, throughout much of 2013 and 2014, and into 2015.

According to “Noticias”, the GCCC concluded “the fraudulent scheme orchestrated by the accused in order to defraud the FDA is evident. They resorted to transfers of funds to the accounts of third parties, and then from these to their own accounts, using accounts that were not related to them to make payments, as a way of hiding and disguising the criminal origin of the funds”.

The trial of Titosse and her alleged accomplices is due to begin before the Maputo City Court on 12 September.

Source: AIM