Zimbabwe’s Ambassador at Large and Presidential Envoy to Europe and the Americas, Uebert Angel, asked First Lady Auxillia Mnangagwa for her help to launder US$1.2 billion.
This came out in the fourth installment of the Gold Mafia investigative documentary by Al Jazeera titled “Have The King With You” that was premiered on Friday, 14 April 2023.
In the episode, Angel allegedly called Mrs. Mnangagwa, whom he called “mum” and asked for help to launder US$1.2 billion.
The Qatari-based broadcaster said it independently verified that the person at the other end of the call was Auxillia Mnangagwa.
Speaking from the United Kingdom where he was meeting with Al Jazeera undercover reporters, who were pretending to be Chinese criminals looking to launder undeclared wealth, Angel asked Auxillia:
Remember those people that want to move cash. They would want to know, are we providing the planes or [are] they providing the planes?
Auxillia, rather curtly, responded to Angel: “How would I know?”
She said Angel should ask “father” in an apparent reference to President Emmerson Mnangagwa. He replied:
I will see him at six, right, and see how I best present this to him.
I will present it to him, then. Then he will discuss which planes he uses, his [Mnangagwa’s] or their own.
When Angel asked Auxillia if it was achievable to “move the cash,” she said, “That’s right.”
After hanging up the call, Angel told the Al Jazeera undercover reporters:
You have got the President, you have got his family involved.
The Gold Mafia documentary is a four-part investigation by Al Jazeera’s Investigative Unit (I-Unit).
It exposed an alleged series of gold smuggling gangs in Southern Africa that help criminals launder hundreds of millions of dollars.
The gang members get rich while plundering their nations.
They use gold to turn dirty cash into clean, seemingly legitimate money for those with large amounts of unaccounted wealth.
The criminals do so by using a complex web of companies, counterfeit identities and fake documents.
Angel was one of the key figures in the documentary where he offered to launder cash into the country using his diplomatic status.
During his encounters with the undercover reporters, Angel was secretly recorded boasting about his close relations with Mnangagwa and how much power he wields as a result.
Angel’s assets were recently frozen by the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe’s Financial Intelligence Unit.
Reports suggest Angel is likely to face money laundering charges and allegations of name-dropping.
A 2020 report by the International Crisis Group (ICG) said gold worth US$1.5 billion was smuggled out of Zimbabwe every year by syndicates linked to political elites.
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