FILE - Former Mozambican finance minister, Manuel Chang, is seen in court in Kempton Park, Johannesburg, South Africa, Jan. 8, 2019. The “tuna bond” scandal that shook Mozambique’s economy is washing into a New York court, Tuesday, July 17, 2024, where former Mozambican finance minister Manuel Chang is on trial on charges alleging he took bribes to commit his country — secretly — to huge loans that prosecutors say got looted.
But bankers and government officials looted the loan money to line their own pockets, U.S. prosecutors said. Prosecutors accused Chang of collecting $7 million in bribes, wired through U.S. banks to European accounts held by an associate.The only agreement Chang made “was the lawful one to borrow money from banks to allow his country to engage in these public infrastructure works,” defense lawyer Adam Ford said in his summation.
Growth stagnated, inflation spurted, the currency lost value, international investment and aid plummeted and the government cut services. Nearly 2 million Mozambicans were forced into poverty, according to a 2021 report by the Chr. Michelsen Institute, a development research body in Norway.
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