Hidden debts: PGR announces list of suspects – AIM report

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Hidden debts: PGR announces list of suspects – AIM report

7:59 CAT | 26 Mar 2019

File photo: Noticias

The Mozambican Attorney-General’s Office (PGR) on Monday announced a list of 20 people suspected of having benefitted from the largest financial scandal in Mozambican history.

This is the case of the “hidden debts” – the term used to refer to the two billion dollars worth of loans which three fraudulent companies – Proindicus, Ematum (Mozambique Tuna Company) and MAM (Mozambique Asset Management) obtained from the banks Credit Suisse and VTB of Russia.

These loans to previously unheard-of companies were only possible because the government of the day, under President Armando Guebuza, issued guarantees of repayment. The man who signed the loan guarantees, former finance minister Manuel Chang, is currently under South African police custody, fighting to avoid extradition to the United States.

The PGR’s list, which appears in Tuesday’s list of the Maputo daily “Noticias”, includes figures who have already been placed in preventive detention.

Among them are Gregorio Leao, the former head of the State Intelligence and Security Service (SISE), his wife, Angela Buque Leao, and Fabiao Mabunda, who allegedly fronted for her in real estate deals.

Also in detention is Guebuza’s oldest son, Ndambi Guebuza, Bruno Langa, a SISE officer, once reputed to be a close associate of Ndambi, Guebuza’s former private secretary, Ines Moiane, and the former head of SISE economic intelligence, Antono do Rosario, who became chairperson of all three fraudulent companies.

Teofilo Nhangumele, who supposdly played a key role in introducing Mozambican officials to the concept of Proindicus, is under detention, as are Sidono Sitoe and Sergio Namburete, suspected of receiving illicit bank transfers from the Abu Dhabi based company Privinvest and them distributing the money to others involved in the scheme. Elias Moiane was briefly detained on the same grounds, but was released on bail.

The most prominent figure among those suspects not yet detained is Renato Matusse, a former political adviser to Guebuza. The other names on the list are Mbanda Anabela Buque (sister of Angela Leao), Marcia Namburete (wife of Sergio Namburete), Cipriano Mutola, Crimildo Manjate, Khessujee Pulchand, Simione Mahumane, Naimo Quimbine, and Zulficar Ahmad.

In addition to these 20 people, the PGR dropped charges against four others (who have not been named), and has opened separate, autonomous cases against four others, including Manuel Chang.

The case against the 20 has been sent to the Maputo City court, and they face charges of money laundering, embezzlement, corruption, extortion, abuse of office, falsifying documents and forming a criminal association.

The PGR has also seized assets from the suspects, including 15 buildings, six vehicles, and one heavy piece of construction machinery on the suspicion that these goods were acquired from the use of illegally obtained funds. The PGR has frozen 31 bank accounts of the suspects.

Source: AIM