{"id":3349,"date":"2024-11-18T09:16:50","date_gmt":"2024-11-18T07:16:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cjimoz.org\/news\/?p=3349"},"modified":"2024-11-18T09:16:50","modified_gmt":"2024-11-18T07:16:50","slug":"how-mozambiques-presidents-stash-their-dodgy-cash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cjimoz.org.mz\/news\/how-mozambiques-presidents-stash-their-dodgy-cash\/","title":{"rendered":"How Mozambique\u2019s presidents stash their dodgy cash"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Open Secrets <\/a><\/p>\n

A presidential guide to stashing dodgy cash What to do with all those ill-gotten gains? A new report offers some clues.<\/p>\n

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The biggest corruption scandal in Mozambique\u2019s history happened before Filipe Nyusi became president. Nonetheless, he benefited. The \u201ctuna bond\u201d scandal, a scam concocted by Swiss bankers, ruling elites and a handful of dubious middlemen, diverted billions of dollars intended for development into the pockets of individuals. Bribed Mozambican individuals got at least $200-million from it. Nyusi\u2019s cut was around $1-million, which he received as \u201ccampaign donations\u201d, according to court documents in both the United Kingdom and United States. Some of the officials have been and will be tried. But lawyers argued that presidential immunity protected Nyusi from prosecution for the scam, which left Mozambique\u2019s exchequer was crushed under the weight of crippling debt, and has stunted the country\u2019s economic growth. Outside court, the sheer brazenness of the corruption displayed in the \u201ctuna bond\u201d scandal cemented public perceptions that Frelimo, the country\u2019s liberation party, was deeply and possibly irredeemably corrupt. Those sentiments are playing a major role in ongoing anti-government protests \u2013 sparked by allegations of a stolen election \u2013 which have been repressed with deadly force by Nyusi\u2019s security forces.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Into South Africa\u2019s laundromat\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

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A million dollars of unknown provenance is nice but brings its own problems: Where to store all that money, and how to make it look legitimate. The Mozambican elites found a solution in South Africa. Shortly after Nyusi got those \u201ccampaign donations\u201d, a R3.9-million ($360,000 then) house in Constantia, an upmarket Cape Town suburb was bought in the name of Nyusi\u2019s son, Jacinto Ferr\u00e3o Filipe Nyusi. He was just 20 years old at the time. This is revealed in a new investigation by Open Secrets, a campaigning group that investigates financial crimes. In 2015, Jacinto Nyusi bought a second South African property: a R17.5- million ($1.55-million then) mansion in Sandhurst, Johannesburg, on a quiet street \u201clined with mansions concealed behind towering walls and 24-hour guard posts\u201d, says Open Secrets in For Sale: South Africa\u2019s Property Laundromat. The first property was sold in 2018 for R4.5-million ($340,000 then). The second appears to have been hastily sold in March 2022 for less than half its purchase price. The timing is relevant: at the time of the fire sale, back home in Mozambique, court proceedings were under way that would eventually convict the son of Nyusi\u2019s predecessor, president Armando Guebuza, of corruption. According to court records in the United States, the former president\u2019s son, Ndambi Guebuza, took $33-million in bribes in the tuna bond scandal. He was sentenced to 12 years in prison by a Mozambican court in late 2022, in relation to these illegal activities. By then, however, Ndambi Guebuza had already bought two lavish properties in Johannesburg: a R9.3-million house ($540,000 then) in the ultra-luxurious Dainfern Estate, and a R10.8-million property in Kyalami Estate. So too had president Guebuza\u2019s daughter, the late Valentina de Luz Guebuza. According to property records viewed by Open Secrets, she owned two properties in Dainfern, purchased for R15-million each. The Nyusi family did not respond to Open Secrets\u2019 request for comment on these findings.<\/span><\/p>\n