The former Director General of Equatorial Guinea’s National Financial Investigation Agency, Baltasar Engonga, is now facing a potential 18-year prison sentence as prosecutors lay out a damning corruption case against him—one that has been further inflamed by the discovery of hundreds of sex tapes involving political elites.
Currently held at the notorious Black Beach Prison since September 2024, the 54-year-old economist appeared in court on Monday in Malabo, where state prosecutors outlined a sweeping indictment covering embezzlement, illicit enrichment, forgery, and abuse of office.
According to the prosecution, between 2015 and 2020—when Engonga headed the Directorate General of Insurance and Reinsurance—he orchestrated the diversion of public funds on a massive scale. Prosecutors are demanding:
8 years for embezzlement, 4 years and 5 months for illicit enrichment, 6 years and 1 day for abuse of office, and a fine of over 910 million CFA francs (approx. $1.5 million).
They also seek to bar him from holding public office for the duration of the sentence.
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Engonga isn’t alone in the dock. Several former senior officials—including Carmelo Julio Matogo Ndong, Ireneo Mangue Monsuy Afana, and Florentina Iganga Iñandji—are co-defendants, alleged to have participated in a broad network of high-level financial fraud.
Yet the financial scandal has been dramatically overshadowed by a lurid twist: investigators, during a search of Engonga’s residence and office, reportedly uncovered over 400 sex tapes, some involving wives of top government officials—including a sister of the president, the spouse of the police chief, and wives of ministers.
Though the sex tapes are not part of the formal charges, their leak to the public has caused a national uproar and plunged the country’s ruling elite into chaos. The videos, said to be consensually recorded, have turned the trial into a gripping national soap opera.
Observers say the twin scandals—one financial, the other deeply personal—are eroding what little trust remains in Equatorial Guinea’s ruling class. The trial, expected to last three days, continues amid heavy media coverage and growing calls for systemic reform.