The eldest son of the dean of African presidents exhibits luxury cars and flats abroad. Judges from the United States, Switzerland, Brazil, France and the United Kingdom have seized numerous properties
Sparkling sunsets over California beaches and breakfasts with brioches and croissants should nurture Teodoro Obiang Mangue’s nostalgia. The first vice president of Equatorial Guinea always knew that there was a fascinating world beyond his country, one of the smallest in Africa, with a surface similar to that of Galicia, and he crossed the Atlantic Ocean, perhaps fascinated by Hollywood, glamor Parisian and London haze. He studied in California and, between classes at Pepperdin University, bought a mansion in Malibu. Then came other residences in the capitals of France and South Africa and also high-end vehicles, yachts, jewelry and works of art.
The acquisition of so many luxury goods also attracted the attention of Justice. First it was the American, then the Swiss and the Brazilian. Last summer, the Paris Court of Cassation confirmed a three-year prison sentence, exempt from compliance, for embezzlement and money laundering; and the English government imposed the freezing of assets, also alleging crimes of embezzlement and the practice of bribery.
The longing of the politician, who is now 53 years old, must refer to the aerodynamic beauty of his two Bugatti Veyrons, valued at more than 2 million euros. Because the son of President Obiang, the dean of the continent’s leaders, is passionate about the most exclusive cars. Two years ago, the Swiss authorities auctioned eleven Ferraris, Bentleys, Rolls Royce and, of course, Bugattis, which had confiscated the leader. But there is more, much more. In 2017, the French courts seized an entire property on the exclusive Foch Avenue, a building with 101 rooms that housed another fleet of cars.
There is no way to rationally explain how that presidential advisor, later the Minister of Agriculture and, currently, the First Vice President, was able to get hold of a heritage that, even today, cannot be fully valued. But strange events are not uncommon in the former Spanish colony. The weakly structured and economically unviable territory that became independent in 1968 became the country with the highest per capita income in Africa in the 1990s, after the discovery of rich hydrocarbon deposits on its maritime platform.
The magical reality of Equatorial Guinea does not stop at this sudden enrichment. The mystery continues to permeate its recent history and is that, although its citizens should have an income similar to that of the French, two-thirds subsist in conditions of extreme poverty.
Perhaps other events explain this apparent contradiction. In 2004, a report from the Washington Senate revealed that Riggs Bank, with which the country’s Treasury worked, housed $ 700 million of deposits linked to the Obiang clan, funds diverted from the publicly owned account.
But the underground flow can resort to various tricks. Russian businessman Vladimir Kokorev is accused of acting as a front man for the Head of Government in a gigantic arms purchase operation for the local army that included surcharges and commissions.
The reputation of the Equatorial Guinean elite is in negligible values, but until now magnanimity has been the tone of Madrid and other Western foreign ministries with the sixth African oil exporter. Teodorín, or Teddy on Instagram, is the exception to that trend. His condition of ‘bon vivant’ is indisputable and, therefore, liable to attract the media spotlight. The latest measure by the English government has prompted the withdrawal of the ambassador, but diplomatic efforts seem futile given the magnitude of the excesses.
Impunity seems assured. Another question is whether Teodoro Obiang’s eldest son can succeed him with this background. It is a question more aesthetic than practical. There is really no evidence of sides within the ranks of the ruling party, although some sources assure that there is a sector more inclined to his stepbrother Gabriel Mbega Obiang, born from the second marriage to Celestina Lima. In any case, the government of Malabo, or of Oyala, its new administrative capital, carries out a fierce defense of who is considered the president’s dolphin. Its control of the weak and atomized political opposition makes a coup d’état directed from abroad more viable, such as the frustrated 2004 or 2017, whose nature still remains unknown.
The origin of fortune
The problems for Teddy may come, curiously, from the origin of his fortune, from those underwater fields that provide 95% of the Gross Domestic Product. The financial situation has deteriorated due to the oil crisis, which has influenced the decrease in foreign investment, and the reduction in extraction levels. Faced with an uncertain future without its monoculture, Equatorial Guinea tries to diversify the economy with the help of credits from the International Monetary Fund.
The shortage could generate instability in that clientelist structure that sustains power, fracture it and establish factions, especially in the event that the presumed heir, with questioned abilities, will succeed the father; or, as has happened in other dictatorships, that the relief is accompanied by a wave of repression indoors. Teodoro Obiang Mangue, the sophisticated and cosmopolitan leader, has a challenge before him. Perhaps he will overcome it and continue to strengthen a dynasty in the Gulf of Guinea that, until now, is going on luxury wheels.
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