The Family of deposed Gabonese President, Ali Bango, has reportedly stashed billions of naira in foreign countries especially the US and France, according to the OCCRP.
The Bongo family has ruled Gabon for over five decades since the period of Omar Bango, the father of Ali Bango who was deposed by the military junta earlier today.
Omar Bongo had ruled the oil-rich Gabon for over four decades and amassed a fortune that reportedly included at least 183 cars, 39 luxury properties in France, and 66 bank accounts.
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In the country’s capital, Libreville, this accumulation of wealth exclusive to the president, his family, and their inner circle is popularly referred to as the “Bongo system.” Meanwhile, a third of Gabon’s population lives in poverty.
It was reported that authorities in France and the U.S. have over the years investigated bundles of cash, customized cars, and pricey properties, assets potentially purchased with proceeds of corruption from the Bango family.
OCCRP disclosed that the Bongos and their inner circle — including a judge who has been instrumental in helping the family hang on to power — have purchased at least seven properties worth over US$4.2 million in and near the U.S. capital.
According to the OCCRP investigation, late President Omar Bongo brought $1 million in shrink-wrapped $100 bills to the U.S. and handed it over to his jobless daughter Yamilee Bongo-Astier.
The unemployed university student kept the stash in a bank safety deposit box and, when questioned, told bank employees that she expected additional funds from her father to purchase a $2.2 million condo in New York City, according to a 2010 Senate report on illicit financial flows into the United States.
She also confirmed that she bought luxury vehicles for Gabonese officials in the U.S. at her father’s request.
Alain Bongo released a funk album in 1978 before changing his name to Ali Bongo and in 2009 taking his deceased father’s seat as president of Gabon.
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Ali Bongo’s election and re-elections were heavily disputed by political opposition, with the matter going all the way to the highest court, which is headed by Marie-Madeleine Mborantsuo, the elder Bongo’s one-time romantic partner.
Nicknamed 3M, the 65-year-old judge was the founding president of the Constitutional Court of Gabon, and has been instrumental in ensuring the longevity of the Bongos’ reign through various legal challenges to their rule. Her court oversaw the contested electoral results in 2009 and 2016, and sided both times with the president.
“In many ways, she is not only a guardian of the institutions, but also the enforcer of the perpetuation of the Bongos presidency, stepping in and doing what is needed,” Ba told OCCRP.
Mborantsuo and her daughter purchased a $1.5 million townhouse in 2013 without a mortgage.
In 2013, Mboranstuo bought a townhouse with her daughter for $1.5 million in cash, in a small cul-de-sac nestled in the wealthy Palisades neighborhood of northwest Washington.
The picturesque neighbourhood, lined with lush trees and colonial homes, houses a large concentration of diplomats and government officials.
According to public records obtained by reporters, the three-bedroom property was rented out for $7,000 per month in 2013.
Two condos in the center of the city were purchased with a total of over $1 million in cash in the names of Mboranstuo’s son and daughter, in 2008 and 2015. The first apartment, which was sold this September for more than half a million dollars in cash, is located one block away from former U.S. President Barack Obama’s personal office in the tony West End neighbourhood of the nation’s capital.
Ounaida Bongo sold her DC townhouse for $1.1 million in cash this summer, five weeks after the US Justice Department moved to seize a $3.5 million Maryland home belonging to former Gambian dictator Yahya Jammeh.
Mborantsuo, who declined to respond to questions from reporters, also reportedly owns real estate in South Africa and France.
Her official salary isn’t publicly known, but a Gabonese Minister of State reportedly earned an annual salary of around $140,000 in 2018, raising questions about the cash real estate purchases.
Radio France Internationale reported in 2017 that French authorities are investigating Mborantsuo for corruption and money laundering.
A short drive from Mborantsuo’s D.C. house is an elegant townhouse that, until this summer, was owned by Ounaida Bongo, the half-sister of the current Gabonese president. Ms. Bongo, a one-time special adviser for communications in Gabon’s Presidential Palace, purchased the home in Washington’s exclusive Wesley Heights neighbourhood in 2001 for $642,000 cash.
The remodeled three-bedroom residence, which she sold for $1.1 million cash in August, sits in a gated community off Massachusetts Avenue, a verdant boulevard of luxury apartments, grand mansions, brownstones, and D.C.’s historic Embassy Row.
Ms. Bongo could not be reached for comment.
Not all the members of the extended Bongo family invested in prime D.C. real estate.
Brice Clotaire Oligui-Nguema, the Gabonese president’s cousin, purchased this $447,000 Silver Spring property in 2018 without a mortgage.
Brice Clotaire Oligui-Nguema, the president’s cousin, was recently appointed head of the elite military unit known as the Republican Guard, according to Gabonese news outlets.
He bought three properties in middle- and working-class neighbourhoods in the Maryland suburbs of Hyattsville and Silver Spring, just outside the capital, in 2015 and 2018. The homes were purchased with a total of over $1 million in cash.
He declined to respond to questions from reporters, saying: “I think whether in France or in the United States, a private life is a private life that [should be] respected.”
