Maputo, 30 Mar (AIM) – Contrary to expectations, Mozambique’s former Finance Minister, Manuel Chang, did not return to Mozambique, but remains detained in the United States.

Chang was supposed to be released from a US federal prison on March 26, after serving a 102-month sentence for fraud and money laundering for his role in Mozambique’s biggest scandal, known as the “hidden debts” case.

The term “hidden debts” refers to the scheme through which three fraudulent Mozambican state-owned companies, Proindicus, Ematum (Empresa Moçambicana de Atum) and MAM (Mozambique Asset Management), all managed by the SISE security service, obtained loans worth more than two billion US dollars from Credit Suisse and VTB banks in Russia.

No bank in its right mind would grant such large loans to companies with no track record and managed by an intelligence service. But any doubts Credit Suisse and VTB may have had were overcome when Chang, as Finance Minister, signed sovereign guarantees, which meant that if companies defaulted, the Mozambican state would reimburse the banks.

And sure enough, the three companies quickly went bankrupt, and so the hidden loans turned into hidden debts. The guarantees signed by Chang were illegal, as the loans exceeded the maximum loan limit established under the 2013 and 2014 budget laws.

The loans were a corrupt scheme devised by the Abu Dhabi-based Privinvest group, which spent hundreds of millions of dollars bribing Mozambican officials (including Chang) and Credit Suisse bankers. Under these agreements, Privinvest became the sole contractor of the three fake companies and sold them fishing boats, radar stations and other assets at highly inflated prices.

Chang was arrested at Johannesburg International Airport in December 2018 on the basis of an international arrest warrant issued by US prosecutors. Because American investors were among those duped in the scandal, the US wanted Chang to stand trial in New York.

Belatedly, Mozambican authorities stated that Chang should be put on trial in Maputo. Chang’s lawyers worked for five years to avoid extradition to the US. Eventually, they failed and in 2023 Chang was deported from Johannesburg to New York.

He was found guilty of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and money laundering, and Judge Nicholas Garaufis sentenced him to eight and a half years in prison.

Chang’s defense team tried to secure his early release for health reasons. The judge rejected the request because he did not believe the lawyers had provided convincing evidence of any serious medical condition that would justify early release.

Chang’s lawyers bought him a plane ticket from Boston to Maputo, via Lisbon – but the Portuguese airline TAP wouldn’t allow him to board the plane.

Upon his release from prison, Chang was transferred from the Federal Bureau of Prisons to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). But he was detained by ICE at Boston Logan Airport because his emergency travel document, issued by the Mozambique Embassy in Lisbon, was not previously authorized by Portuguese authorities (who would be responsible for the former minister during his transit).

Thus, Chang remained in ICE custody at a prison in Plymouth, Massachusetts. Attempts by Chang’s legal team to secure his immediate deportation failed, despite requests made to federal prosecutors. The lawyers then asked Judge Garaufis to intervene to ensure that Chang was put on a plane to Maputo.

Before the trial in New York, Mozambique’s Attorney General’s Office (PGR) repeatedly insisted that Mozambique was the only country with the legitimacy to put Chang on trial.

The PGR’s attempts failed – but, in theory, it could order Chang’s arrest the moment he disembarked the plane in Maputo.
(AIM)
Pf/ (613)