Mozambique: Recovered assets finance social projects

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Mozambique: Recovered assets finance social projects

1:12 CAT | 17 Jun 2025

FILE - PGR promises to intensify the fight against financial and organized crime and direct recovered assets to social projects. [File photo: Roberto Paquete/DW]

The Attorney General’s Office of Mozambique says that assets from crimes that have been recovered will be used to finance social projects. In two years, more than €78 million in assets have been seized.

The Attorney General’s Office (PGR) of Mozambique is promising to intensify the fight against financial and organized crime, emphasizing that offenders cannot benefit from the illicit acts they have committed.

It is a matter of prevention, said Naftal Zucula, representative of the PGR, yesterday during a debate on asset recovery in Maputo.

“It is necessary to remove from the sphere of the offender all the benefit generated by the practice of the crime, placing the perpetrator of the crime in the same situation as if the crime had not been committed,” Zucula said.

In addition to recovering the assets, it is also necessary to compensate the victims. And the PGR guarantees that actions are already underway to use assets recovered in 2024 to finance social projects.

Last year, the Central Asset Recovery Office in Mozambique seized assets estimated at the equivalent of €61 million. This is a significant increase compared to 2023, when it managed to recover €17 million, according to the Lusa news agency.

Luís Mabote Júnior, representing the Supreme Court at the conference yesterday, agrees that if criminals continue to obtain advantages, they will not hesitate to commit crimes.

“We need to deprive organized crime of the economic resources it accumulates through the practice of illicit activities and which it uses to strengthen itself,” said Luís Júnior.

The officer adds that organized crime “uses the accumulated resources to reinvest in the crime perpetrated and perpetuate its illicit actions. It uses these resources to attract agents to its ranks”.

Transparency

But what is the guarantee that the recovered assets are being properly used by the state? What is the fate of so much money and seized properties?

Denilton Chau, director of the Asset Recovery Office, guarantees that everything is done in accordance with the law. There are criteria for the sale of recovered assets; the proceeds are intended for the state.

“We adopted the auction criteria. There are auctions that the law provides for seized assets that can easily deteriorate, so these are subject to auction. The decree itself provides for which assets these are,” explains Chau.

Also in May, the Mozambican State announced the auction of 112 cars seized in criminal proceedings.