The Geneva Prosecutor’s Office has closed an investigation into Teodorin Obiang, the son of the president of Equatorial Guinea, regarding money laundering and mismanagement of public assets.
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Prosecutors said on Thursday that Equatorial Guinea had agreed to pay Geneva authorities CHF1.3 million ($1.3 million) in “procedural costs”. These involved requests for legal assistance to the United States, the Cayman Islands and Marshall Islands, France, the Netherlands, Monaco and Denmark, the prosecutor’s office saidExternal link on Thursday.
The prosecutor’s office said that all 25 cars seized in Geneva will be sold and the proceeds given to a social programme in Obiang’s home country.
This will be implemented “transparently on the basis of an international accord negotiated by the Swiss foreign ministry”, the prosecutor’s office said. The “Ebony Shine” yacht has been released, it added.
The statement did not give details about the cars or which of the defendants owned them.
In 2016, the Swiss weekly magazine L’Hebdo reported that the seized vehicles included a Porsche 918 Spider valued at €750,000 euros, a Bugatti Veyron worth €2 million and a Swedish supercar, the Koenigsegg One:1. Only seven Koenigsegg One:1 models have been built, initially selling for around €2 million.
In 2017, Obiang was sentenced to three years’ probation for embezzlement and corruption in France. The 49-year-old financed his luxurious life with embezzled money from the treasury of Equatorial Guinea. The French judiciary seized clothes, jewellery, works of art, real estate and luxury cars worth CHF200 million.
Obiang was named vice-president of Equatorial Guinea in June 2016 by his father and the country’s president Teodoro Obiang Nguema. Nguema has been in power for nearly 40 years, making him Africa’s longest-ruling dictator.
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