WASHINGTON - Undercover Al Jazeera journalists have linked President Emmerson Mnangagwa, his wife, and entire family to the massive gold scandal exposed in a four-part documentary series titled ‘Gold Mafia’ in which suspected criminals and others are smuggling the precious metal worth millions of dollars by surpassing security detection at the southern African nation’s borders.
In its explosive fourth edition, the journalists spoke to Eubert Angel, who is Zimbabwe’s Ambassador At Large, suspected gold smugglers and several people who are said to be linked to the first family about smuggling cash worth US$1,2 billion from Hong Kong.
Angel told the Al Jazeera journalists, posing as investors intending to launder the dirty money by building a casino in Zimbabwe, saying it’s possible to proceed with the deal as long as Mnangagwa agrees on ways of smuggling the money.
Angel said, “The gold side of it, that’s one of the best things you can come up with. The plan is to build it on prime land overlooking Victoria Falls.”
He said there is a lot of prime land owned by the president in the country’s prime resort of Victoria Falls.
Showing them a message from the president, Angel said, “Who is this one? President right?” I found nice place in Victoria Falls. In the town of Victoria Falls itself you have a lot of land that is owned by (sign language of number 1). You can understand. That then is easy to dispose of. You can just go like, let’s take this. Let’s put it this way. I think you understand when I say that. So, it becomes easy. That’s what he said ‘I want a one-on-one so I can tell them about the (sign language – smuggling of cash).
When the reporter said they would build a hotel, casino and gold market in the resort town, Angel agreed, noting that he would talk to Auxillia Mnangagwa about getting the cash to Zimbabwe.
Angel proposed to fly in the cash on the presidential plane or (reporter) Mr. Stanely’s private jet. He called the First Lady to fix the issue.
“Hello mai (mother). Remember those people that want to move cash. They would want to know are we providing the planes or they provide the planes.” In her response, the first lady said, “You should ask our father about that.”
Reacting to her remarks, Angel noted hat he will “get hold of him (Mnangagwa) to clear this. Leave it. Leave it mum. I will see him at 6:00pm. And see how I best present this to him. So, I will present it to him.Then you will discuss which plane he uses, his own or their own. But it’s not a big deal.”
Mrs. Mnangagwa concurred but a few hours later when Mnangagwa did not respond to the proposal, Angel called her again saying, “mum we spoke but sometimes father is busy. But we spoke about it. So, I’m just gonna present it today.” She asked her to go back to him and discuss the issue.
Mrs. Mnangagwa said, “No, go back and have the conversation again.” She added that all this was doable.
At that stage Angel felt that she was a bit annoyed. He said, “Don’t be too annoyed. I could tell you are annoyed.”
He then told the ‘investors’ that all is well. “Let me just say to you, what you wanna do is happening alright. You have got the president. You have got his family involved. I kept on asking, ‘but is it possible to do this, right?’. Yes, it is possible. We can do that. But which plane to use it depends whether they want to use their own or use ours. Our own will be good. Their own will be good. Anything. The wife controls everything.”