How South Africa became a haven for Mozambique's dubious presidential money – The AfriLatest & Headlines

A car passes a defaced election poster of the presidential candidate of the Front for the Liberation of Mozambique (FRELIMO) party, Daniel Chapo, in Mozambique's capital, Maputo, on November 5, 2024. (Photo by ALFREDO ZUNIGA/AFP via Getty Images)

The biggest corruption scandal in Mozambique's history happened before Filipe Nyusi became president.

Still, he benefited.

The “tuna bonds” scandal, a fraud concocted by Swiss bankers, ruling elites and a handful of shady intermediaries, diverted billions of dollars intended for development into the pockets of individuals.

Bribed Mozambican individuals obtained at least 200 million dollars from this.

Nyusi's share was about $1 million, which he received as “campaign donations,” according to court documents in the UK and US.

Some of the employees have been and will be tried. But lawyers argued that presidential immunity protected Nyusi from being prosecuted for the fraud, which left Mozambique's Treasury crushed under the weight of crippling debt and stunted the country's economic growth.

The sheer brazenness of the corruption demonstrated in the “tuna bond” scandal cemented the public perception that Frelimo, the country's liberation party, was deeply and possibly hopelessly corrupt.

These sentiments are playing a major role in ongoing anti-government protests — sparked by allegations of stolen elections — that have been suppressed with lethal force by Nyusi's security forces.

In the laundry room of South Africa

A million dollars of unknown origin is nice, but it brings its own problems – where to keep all 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 Ferrão Filipe Nyusi.

He was just 20 years old at the time.

This is revealed in a new investigation by Open Secrets, a campaign group that investigates financial crimes.

In 2015, Jacinto Nyusi bought a second South African property: a R17.5 million mansion in Sandhurst, Johannesburg, on a quiet street “full of mansions hidden behind high walls and 24-hour guard posts”, says Open Secrets in For Sale: South African Real Estate Laundromat.

The first property was sold in 2018 for R$4.5 million. The second appears to have been hastily sold in March 2022 for less than half the purchase price.

The moment is relevant. At the time of the immediate sale, in Mozambique, legal proceedings were underway that would end up convicting the son of Nyusi's predecessor, President Armando Guebuza, of corruption.

According to US court records, Ndambi Guebuza received $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 illegal activities.

By then, however, Ndambi Guebuza had already purchased two luxury properties in Johannesburg: a R9.3 million house in the ultra-luxurious Dainfern Estate and a R10.8 million property in Kyalami Estate.

The same happened with President Guebuza's daughter, the late Valentina de Luz Guebuza.

According to property records seen by Open Secrets, she owned two properties in Dainfern, purchased for R15 million each.

The Nyusi family did not respond to Open Secrets' request for comment on the findings.

Good neighbor for the corrupt

“Gated communities and high-walled mansions line the upscale neighborhoods of South Africa's big cities. These fortified homes have one purpose for their rich and powerful owners: to keep criminals out. But what about the criminals who live inside them?” asks Open Secrets.

The question is rhetorical.

Although South Africa has strict laws designed to prevent money laundering, these are not always enforced – especially in the real estate sector.

This is why it remains an attractive destination for potentially dubious money, which is part of the reason the country has been placed on the “grey list” of international watchdogs.

Anti-money laundering laws are not always enforced. In addition to Mozambican

For example, the Open Secrets report documented how ruling elites in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Equatorial Guinea also invested the proceeds of alleged corruption in South African luxury properties.

“The South African public and private sectors apparently facilitated the wealth stolen from Mozambique, the DRC and Equatorial Guinea to be hidden in luxury properties. In doing so, South African institutions became complicit in facilitating corrupt transactions that harmed the most vulnerable communities in these countries,” the report concludes.