West News Wire: One of Zimbabwe’s most powerful ambassadors, Uebert Angel, promised to use his position to exploit a gold-smuggling plan to launder millions of dollars.
Angel, a presidential envoy and ambassador-at-large appointed by Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa in March 2021, informed media that he would be able to use his diplomatic credentials to bring in significant amounts of illicit money.
The 44-year-old, who claims to be a prophet and heads a congregation the Good News Church with branches in 15 countries, said he would facilitate a scheme through which unaccounted cash could be exchanged for Zimbabwe’s gold. Recipients of the gold could then sell the precious metal for legitimate money, effectively turning their cash clean.
Angel and his business partner Rikki Doolan also claimed that their laundering operations had the approval of Mnangagwa, who has been in power since November 2017, when Zimbabwe’s controversial former leader Robert Mugabe was ousted in a military coup.
“You want gold, gold we can do it right now, we can make the call right now, and it’s done,” Angel told reporters. “It will land in Zimbabwe Zimbabwe can’t touch it too until I get to my house. So, there can be a diplomatic plan.”
“So, it is a very, very easy thing,” he said.
Angel made the offer during an operation that was part of ‘Gold Mafia’, an investigation into several gold-smuggling gangs in Southern Africa, with Zimbabwe and South Africa as key hubs.
The investigation reveals how these gangs have turned Western sanctions meant to target Zimbabwe’s government into an opportunity to smuggle large quantities of gold and launder hundreds of millions of dollars through a complex web of companies and bribes.
Some persons posing as Chinese nationals who were looking to launder large sums of money, were offered several ways to remove all stains of corruption from their dirty cash.
Among those mechanisms was the use of Angel’s diplomatic clout. Officially, the pastor-diplomat is tasked with finding investors to come to Zimbabwe. However, Angel made it clear that he was willing to help smuggle gold and launder money.
Central to Angel’s gold-for-dirty money operations is Henrietta Rushwaya, president of the Zimbabwe Miners Association. Rushwaya, who is also President Mnangagwa’s niece, told Angel and the reporters on a phone call that smuggling 100kg of gold each week would be no problem.
The scheme would need an initial investment of $10mn of dirty cash into the government’s gold refinery, Fidelity. Of that, $5mn would be held in reserve by Fidelity for the duration of the scam, with the rest being used every week to buy gold.
