Mozambique’s government said on Monday that the Attorney General’s Office has frozen at least $7 million returned by Manual Chang, the former finance minister detained in the United States in connection with the hidden debts.
‘Once the process is underway, All the amounts returned in the context of the processes associated with these loans have been channelled and are in the custody of the Attorney General’s Office until the process reaches its conclusion,’ the deputy minister of economy and finance, Amílcar Tivane, said, reacting to a question from the media about Manual Chang’s return to the Mozambican state of around $7 million (€6.4 million).
Chang, who has been detained in New York since July 2023 after being extradited from South Africa, is accused of conspiracy to defraud and involvement in a money laundering scheme, facing up to 30 years in prison if convicted, and is also targeted in other cases linked to Mozambique’s hidden debt scandal.
At the opening of the trial in the United States on 16 July, US prosecutors accused Mozambique’s former finance minister of having received $7 million in bribes in a ‘corrupt’ plan to enrich himself and cheat investors, Law360, a website specialising in legal matters, reported at the time.
During opening statements, a prosecutor told the jury that Chang was a ‘corrupt foreign official who abused his authority to enrich himself through bribery, fraud and money laundering’, accusing him of conspiring to divert funds from Mozambique’s efforts to protect and expand its natural gas and fishing industries.
Three agreements cost $622 million (€568.8 million) to finance coastal surveillance, $855 million (€781.7 million) for a fleet of tuna fishing boats and $535 million (€489.3 million) for shipyard projects, according to prosecutor Peter Cooch – quoted by Law360 – stressing that investors lost millions of dollars because ‘the projects were a failure’ and Mozambique defaulted on the loans.
The prosecutor explained that evidence at the trial will include documentation of bribes and electronic transfers to a Swiss bank account controlled by Chang’s friend.
Chang rejects all the accusations and points to the current president, Filipe Nyusi, who was minister of defence at the time, as the one who ordered him to sign the bank guarantees that made the hidden debts possible.
Chang was Mozambique’s finance minister during Armando Guebuza’s rule, between 2005 and 2010, and is said to have guaranteed debts of $2.7 billion (€2.5 billion) secretly contracted in favour of EMATUM, Proindicus and MAM, public companies mentioned in the US indictment, allegedly created for this purpose in the maritime security and fisheries sectors, between 2013 and 2014, in a scandal that was only uncovered in 2016.
To cancel debts and claim financial compensation, Mozambique took the case to the British courts, alleging corruption, conspiracy to defraud by unlawful means and dishonest assistance.
The London Commercial Court ruled in Mozambique’s favour on Monday, determining that shipping group Privinvest must pay compensation for corruption by former finance minister Manuel Chang.
The Mozambican Attorney General’s Office said today that the country is entitled to receive approximately $1.9 billion (€1.8 billion) due to the judgement.
Lusa