New York (AFP) – Former Mozambican finance minister Manuel Chang was sentenced to more than eight years in prison on Friday in connection with a graft scandal that sparked an economic crisis in his home country. Chang, 69, was convicted in a US court in August for his role in the so-called “hidden debt” scandal that saw the Mozambican government contracting $2 billion in secret loans in 2013 and 2014 from international banks to buy a tuna-fishing fleet and surveillance vessels.
The loans were hidden from parliament, but the debt came to light in 2016, prompting donors, including the IMF and the World Bank, to turn off financial support. The scandal triggered Mozambique’s worst economic crisis since independence from Portugal four decades earlier. An independent audit later found that $500 million had been diverted and remained unaccounted for. According to the Justice Department, Chang and his co-conspirators diverted more than $200 million of the loan proceeds to pay bribes and kickbacks.
Chang was accused of receiving $7 million in bribes to help secure the loans. He was convicted of one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering and sentenced to 102 years in prison. He was also ordered to forfeit $7 million. Chang, who was arrested in South Africa and extradited to the United States, has already spent a total of six years in US and South African prisons and he may only have to serve another 2.5 years.
“Chang’s brazen misconduct betrayed his duty to the people of Mozambique and defrauded investors, including those in the United States, of substantial amounts,” Brent Wible, a Justice Department official, said in a statement. “Today’s sentence shows that foreign officials who abuse their power to commit crimes targeting the US financial system will meet US justice,” acting US Attorney Carolyn Pokorny said.
© 2024 AFP
