A car passes a defaced election poster of Daniel Chapo, presidential candidate of the Front for the Liberation of Mozambique (FRELIMO), in Maputo, the capital of Mozambique, on November 5, 2024. (Photo: ALFREDO ZUNIGA/AFP via Getty Images)
The biggest corruption scandal in Mozambique's history occurred before Filipe Nyusi became president.
Nevertheless, he benefited.
The “tuna bond'' scandal was a fraud concocted by Swiss bankers, the ruling elite, and a handful of shady intermediaries that diverted billions of dollars intended for development into private pockets.
The Mozambicans who took the bribes made off with at least $200 million.
Nyusi's share was about $1 million, which he said he received as a “campaign contribution,” according to court documents in both the U.K. and the U.S.
Some of the officials have been and will continue to be tried. But lawyers argue that presidential immunity protects Nyusi from prosecution for fraud, which has crushed Mozambique's finance ministry under the weight of crippling debt and stunted the country's economic growth. he claimed.
The sheer brazenness of corruption on display in the “tuna bond'' scandal has solidified the public perception that Frelimo, the country's liberation party, is deeply and perhaps irrevocably corrupt.
These sentiments have played a major role in ongoing anti-government protests sparked by allegations of election fraud, which security forces in Nyussi have suppressed with deadly force.
To a coin laundry in South Africa
A million dollars with unknown sources is a good thing, but it also comes with the question of where to keep that money and how to make it look legitimate.
Mozambican elites found a solution in South Africa.
Shortly after Nyusi received these “campaign donations”, a R3.9-million house in Constantia, an upscale suburb of Cape Town, was purchased in the name of Nyusi's son Jacinto Ferran Filipe Nyusi.
He was only 20 years old at the time.
This is revealed in a new study by Open Secrets, a campaign group that investigates financial crimes.
In 2015, Jacinto Nyusi purchased his second property in South Africa. The R17.5 million mansion in Sandhurst, Johannesburg, is located on a quiet street “lined with mansions hidden behind soaring walls and 24-hour guard posts”, says Open Secret magazine. For Sale: South African Real Estate Laundromat.
The first property was sold in 2018 for R4.5 million. The second car appears to have been sold in a hurry in March 2022 for less than half the purchase price.
Timing matters. At the time of the sale, a trial was underway in his native Mozambique to convict the son of Nyusi's predecessor, President Armando Guebuza, of corruption.
Ndambi Gebuza accepted $33 million in bribes in the tuna bond scandal, according to US court records.
He was sentenced to 12 years in prison by a Mozambican court at the end of 2022 in connection with his illegal activities.
However, by then Ndambi Gebuza had already purchased two luxury properties in Johannesburg. A R9.3-million home in the ultra-luxury Dainfern Estate and a R10.8-million estate in Kyalami Estate.
So did President Guebusa's daughter, the late Valentina de Luz Guebusa.
According to property records seen by Open Secrets, she owns two properties in Dainfern, which she bought for R15 million each.
The Nyusi family did not respond to Open Secret's request for comment on the findings.
good neighbors to corrupt people
“The upmarket neighborhoods of South Africa's big cities are lined with gated communities and high-walled mansions. There's one goal: to keep them out. But what about the criminals living inside?'' asks Open Secret.
The question is rhetorical.
Although South Africa has strict laws designed to prevent money laundering, these laws are not always enforced, particularly in the real estate sector.
That's why the country remains an attractive destination for potentially dangerous cash, which is part of the reason why the country is “grey-listed” by international watchdogs. There is.
Anti-money laundering laws are not always enforced. In addition to Mozambicans,
For example, an open secret report documents how ruling elites in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Equatorial Guinea invest proceeds from alleged corruption in luxury real estate in South Africa.
“South Africa’s public and private sectors appear to be making it easy to hide stolen wealth from Mozambique, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Equatorial Guinea in luxury real estate. They became complicit in facilitating corrupt transactions to the detriment of their communities,” the report concluded.
