Former Mozambican finance minister extradited to US in $2bn corruption case

Nearly five years after he was arrested at a South African airport, Mozambique’s former finance minister has lost his latest appeal in court and faces more than $2 billion in extradition to the United States. corruption scandal related to loans from Mozambican state-owned companies.

US prosecutors allege that Manuel Chang, Mozambique’s finance minister from 2005 to 2015, was involved in a scheme that ultimately scammed US and international investors. Huge sums of money lent to Mozambique by international banks and guaranteed by the Mozambican government are said to have been intended for a number of offshore projects but disappeared in the form of bribes, kickbacks and other illegal payments.

Chang is accused of accepting about $17 million in bribes in a “hidden debt” scandal. In 2018, he was indicted in the Eastern District Court of New York.

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More than $2 billion was earmarked for the purchase of naval vessels, construction and maintenance of shipyards and various other projects to help the country’s fishing industry, but was allegedly never used for these purposes. The scandal sparked a financial crisis in Mozambique. When the loans were disclosed in 2016, the International Monetary Fund withdrew its support South Africa a country

Chang has been imprisoned in South Africa since December 2018, when South African police arrested him at Johannesburg’s OR Tambo International Airport at the request of US authorities before he flew to Dubai.

He has filed numerous lawsuits and appeals in an attempt to avoid extradition to the US.

Former Mozambican finance minister Manuel Chang is facing extradition to the US for his role in a scheme that defrauded banks around the world of billions of dollars. (AP Photo/Phill Magakoe, file)

Chang ran out of legal options in South Africa when the country’s highest constitutional court dismissed applications from him and the government of Mozambique to appeal a lower court’s decision to extradite him to the United States.

Chang and the Mozambican government argued that he should be extradited to Mozambique.

The Constitutional Court ruled on Wednesday and provided a copy of the decision to the AP on Thursday. In its decision, the court stated that leave to appeal the decision to extradite Chang to the United States “should be denied” because there was “no reasonable chance of success”.

The Mozambican civil society group Forum de Monitoria do Orcamento (FMO) supported Chang’s extradition to the US, saying in court that he was unlikely to face real justice in his home country.

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In December, several more accused in the scandal were convicted and sentenced in Mozambique. Among them is Ndambi Guebuza, son of former Mozambique President Armando Guebuza, who was sentenced to 12 years in prison for illegally obtaining an estimated $33 million from corrupt deals.

Ten other people were found guilty on similar charges and sentenced to more than 10 years in prison.

South Africa The Justice Department and Chang’s lawyers did not immediately respond to AP’s questions about when Chang could be extradited to the US.

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In 2021, Swiss bank Credit Suisse agreed to pay at least $475 million to British and US authorities to settle allegations of bribery and kickbacks related to the bank’s involvement in the loans.