No impunity: the law steps in to investigate.
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| Nguema Obiang paid US$1.1 million for a crystal-studded glove. |
It’s getting harder for Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue to keep getting away with it.
The son of the long-serving president of Equatorial Guinea has been
forced by the US government to forfeit his cliff-top Malibu mansion, a
rare Ferrari and several life-size Michael Jackson statues, all said by
the US Department of Justice to have been purchased with proceeds of
corruption.
Read the Department of Justice case here.
The settlement, announced on 10 October, follows the French government’s sale last year
of a fleet of luxury sports cars seized from Nguema Obiang as part of a
money-laundering investigation, including Bugattis, Ferraris and
Maseratis.
In their 10-year investigation of Nguema Obiang, US officials
documented a three-country shopping spree of more than US$100 million,
according to the Wall Street Journal.
The Department of Justice went after US$70.8 million in US assets – and
will recover about half of that from the man whose official government
salary was less than US$100,000, according to the Department of Justice
case.
Though its oil riches give Equatorial Guinea a per capita GDP on a par with Italy, South Korea, and Israel,
its own government acknowledges that over 75 per cent of its people
live in poverty. A majority of Equatoguineans lack access to clean
drinking water, and on average, they die before their 50th birthday, according to the Centre for Economic and Social Rights.
Last week’s settlement was the first US legal action of any kind to
target the family of a sitting head of state. When the assets are sold,
US$20 million will be given to a charitable organisation for the benefit
of the people of Equatorial Guinea and another US$10.3 million will be
forfeited to the United States for the same purpose, according to the
Justice Department.
It is not full justice for the victims – the people of Equatorial Guinea – but it is a step in that direction.
The agreement also provides that if certain of Nguema Obiang’s other
assets – including a Gulfstream Jet and a Michael Jackson
crystal-studded glove (pictured above) – are ever brought into the
United States, they are subject to seizure and forfeiture, the Open Society Justice In
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