In Dubai, the shadow of African ill-gotten gains

Marie-Madeleine Mborantsuo was one of the most powerful women in Gabon. At the head of the country’s Constitutional Court for thirty-two years, this close friend of former President Omar Bongo (1967-2009) managed to put an end to several institutional crises which shook the country. But the tide has turned for “3M”. Dismissed from her post after the overthrow of the regime by the military junta in the summer of 2023, she could one day answer for her enrichment before French justice.

According to information from WorldParisian investigating judges have been investigating facts of “laundering of embezzlement of public funds”. This procedure, which has already given rise to criminal referrals, follows an initial investigation by the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office (PNF) which suspected Mme Mborantsuo of having financed, in 2013, an apartment in Versailles with 1.45 million euros of dirty money. That same year, she also acquired a townhouse in an affluent neighborhood of Washington, DC. (UNITED STATES).

But the heritage of Mme Mborantsuo is probably much superior. According to a leak of confidential data called “Dubai Unlocked”, to which The world had access, “3M” and his children spent, in the winter of 2013, 24 million Emirati dirhams (6 million euros) to afford five apartments and two villas in Dubai.

Source: “Dubai Unlocked”. The value of the goods corresponds to the purchase price, converted into euros.

When contacted, none of the personalities above responded.

The leaked file, which details the identities of the owners or occupants of hundreds of thousands of villas and apartments located in the emirate, reveals that many members of the inner circle of African autocrats have, they too, invested millions. As with “3M”, the amounts spent rarely match their official functions, fueling suspicion about the origin of their funds.

“Dubai Unlocked” is a collaborative investigation based on leaked information regarding hundreds of thousands of properties in Dubai, as well as information on their ownership or use, primarily between 2020 and 2022.

The data was obtained by the Center for Advanced Defense Studies (C4ADS), an American think tank based in Washington, DC, composed of former American officers and academics, which studies international crimes and conflicts. They were then communicated to the Norwegian financial media E24 and the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project consortium (OCCRP), who coordinated this investigative project with 72 media outlets around the world, including The world.

The real estate data at the heart of the project comes from a series of leaks of more than 100 datasets. The majority of data comes from the Dubai Land Department and Emirati utility companies.

In Equatorial Guinea, the president’s sons and brother-in-law

This is the case, for example, of Pastor Obiang. The son of the President of Equatorial Guinea, Teodoro Obiang, bought a villa of nearly 1,000 square meters in Dubai for 3.6 million euros in May 2020. Three months earlier, his older brother, Teodorin, had been heavily condemned by the French courts in a case of “ill-gotten gains”, for having built up a significant Parisian heritage by embezzlement of public funds.

The “Dubai Unlocked” file also reveals the extent of the heritage of their uncle Candido Nsue Okomo, former boss of the national oil company (2004-2015) then minister of sports (2015-2018). The brother of the first lady bought between 2013 and 2018 a huge villa on the seafront in Palm Jumeirah, the emblematic artificial island in the shape of a palm tree, as well as a year-round hotel room and three apartments intended for rental.

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