Adeyinka Olaiya, Sao Paulo, Brazil/
The controversial Vice President of Equatorial Guinea, Teodorin Nguema Obiang Mangue, and his delegation have been arrested by the Federal Police in Brazil after they were caught entering the country without declaring a sum of $1.4million and R$55, 000.
NewsmakersNG exclusively gathered today that the police found $1.4 million (CFA 790, 146, 980.65), 20 sophisticated wrist watches worth about $14 million and other items in the luggage of Teodorin Mangue, the son of the dictator, Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, who arrived the Viracorpos airport in Brazil on a private jet from Malabo yesterday.
NewsmakersNG learnt that since the trip to Brazil was never on official bases the Brazilian police have the full right to search the aircraft.
Swiss authorities had once seized 11 luxury cars from Teodorin after accusing him of money laundering.
A French court had also convicted Teodorin of corruption, last year, and ordered the confiscation of his Paris mansion and other assets worth about £100 million.
Teodorin, whose father has been president of the oil-rich west African country for 38 years, was given a three-year suspended prison sentence by the French court.
While approaching the boxes where hard currencies were hidden during the internal search of the aircraft yesterday, the personal guards of the Vice President tried to enter in confusion but the police denied them access to the suitcases.
Reliable immigration sources told NewsmakersNG that many incriminating documents and objects were found by the police in the aircraft apart from the undeclared hard currencies.
The entourage in the aircraft were all conducted to the police station where oaths were sworn, regarding the incidence, and eventual court proceedings will follow up after a complete investigation of the real reasons why they were in Brazil.
Teodorin allegedly told authorities that the seized amount was to serve for the payment of a complete medical treatment he intended to undergo with the best and most expensive private hospital in the southern part of Brazil Just in few days to come.
The Brazilian police had allegedly suspected that the cause of the Vice President’s visit to Brazil is criminally minded after refusing to let the authorities know of his arrival in Brazil.
According to the sources, the President of Equatorial Guinea in 2015 donated a sum of $10 million to a Brazilian Samba School to pay homages to the dictator in Equatorial Guinea during that year’s annual carnival display.
There are suspicions that the intentions of the Vice President could be of Narcotrafficking, ammunition, or money laundry.
Equatorial Guinea is an oil-rich nation riddled with poverty.
The police impounded the aircraft with all seized items but later released all to Teodorin.