Mozambique Food Lawsuits: London Judgment, US Prosecutions, Maputo Trial

The Mozambique tuna bonds scandal was a scheme in which roughly $2 billion in secret, government-guaranteed loans arranged in 2013 and 2014 for three state-owned companies, supposedly to fund tuna fishing, coastal surveillance, and shipyards, were largely siphoned off through inflated contracts and more than $200 million in bribes to Mozambican officials and Credit Suisse bankers. The fallout has produced a London High Court judgment ordering the Privinvest shipbuilding group to pay about $1.9 billion, a U.S. federal conviction and 102-month prison sentence for former finance minister Manuel Chang, prison terms of 10 to 12 years for eleven Mozambicans in a Maputo trial, and about $475 million in combined regulatory penalties against Credit Suisse.

What the Loans Were Supposed to Fund

Three state-owned companies were created under the supervision of Mozambique’s intelligence service, SISE. ProIndicus was to handle coastal surveillance and maritime security. EMATUM was to build a tuna fishing fleet, which is where the scandal gets its nickname. Mozambique Asset Management, or MAM, was to build and maintain shipyards.

Between 2013 and 2014, the London branches of Credit Suisse and the Russian bank VTB arranged loans of $622 million for ProIndicus, $850 million for EMATUM, and $535 million for MAM.¹ Sovereign guarantees were signed by then-Finance Minister Manuel Chang, but parliament never approved them, as Mozambique’s constitution required.² The debts were kept off the state budget and hidden from the International Monetary Fund. When part of the EMATUM borrowing became public in 2013, the ProIndicus and MAM loans stayed concealed, and Mozambican ministers actively denied their existence to the IMF and foreign ambassadors.

The money never reached Mozambique. Credit Suisse sent it directly to Privinvest, a Franco-Lebanese shipbuilding group run by chairman Iskandar Safa, which was the sole contractor on all three projects.³ An independent audit by Kroll later found that Privinvest had over-inflated contract prices by about $713 million.⁴ For EMATUM alone, independent valuations found the 27 fishing boats delivered were worth between $265 million and $394 million less than the $850 million loan.⁵ Kroll found Privinvest had quoted $22 million for vessels worth no more than $2 million, and industry experts described the feasibility studies as “worthless.” Much of the equipment that was delivered ended up sitting idle in Maputo harbour.

Who Got Paid Off

Prosecutors in the United States and the United Kingdom alleged that more than $200 million of the loan proceeds went to bribes and kickbacks: roughly $150 million to Mozambican officials and around $50 million to Credit Suisse bankers.⁵

Chang allegedly received $7 million to sign the sovereign guarantees. Ndambi Guebuza, son of then-President Armando Guebuza, allegedly received $33 million, treated by those paying as a channel to his father’s political approval.⁶ Evidence presented at the London trial included emails between Privinvest executive Jean Boustani and Mozambican intermediary Teófilo Nhangumele discussing “success fees” and the need to “massage the system” to secure political sign-off.⁷

Privinvest denied paying bribes. Safa testified that “Privinvest does not pay bribes full stop,” and the company characterized transfers to figures like Chang as “legitimate payments” for “electoral campaigns and commercial projects.”⁶ The London court rejected that characterization.

What It Cost Mozambique

The hidden debts were exposed in April 2016, primarily through reporting by the Wall Street Journal. The IMF halted its lending program. The World Bank and other donors suspended aid. External aid fell from $700 million to under $200 million in a single year, and foreign direct investment dropped by 40%.⁴

The metical lost half its value against the dollar over 2015 and 2016, making the dollar-denominated debts heavier still.² The government defaulted. Real public expenditure was cut in half between 2014 and 2016, and combined spending on health and education fell by $1.7 billion over the following two years compared with prior levels. Researchers put the total economic cost at $11.3 billion between 2016 and 2019, roughly $403 for every Mozambican, in a country where most people live on far less. The crisis pushed an estimated 1.9 million people below the poverty line.¹

The London High Court Judgment

Mozambique, acting through its Attorney General, sued Credit Suisse, VTB, the Privinvest group, and several Mozambican officials in the English High Court. The trial before Justice Robin Knowles ran for three months from October 2023.⁷

Settlements With the Banks

Before trial concluded, the banks settled. The deal with UBS, which had acquired Credit Suisse in 2023 and inherited its liabilities, was announced on October 2, 2023. UBS paid no cash but agreed to forgive a portion of the ProIndicus debt valued at under $100 million. Mozambique’s economy minister said the settlement would significantly reduce legal costs that had been running at about 3.5 million pounds a month and had reached $80 million since 2019.⁸⁹ VTB and syndicated lenders also settled separately.

Judgment Against Privinvest

On July 29, 2024, Justice Knowles handed down judgment against the Privinvest group. The court found that corruption underlay the projects and that the focus of individuals from Privinvest, the banks, and Mozambican officialdom “was on the money provided by lending rather than the supplies themselves.” Privinvest was ordered to pay approximately $1.9 billion in damages.¹⁰

The court concluded that Safa had knowledge and approval of “all material proposals” related to the three projects, including the figures for payments and transactions, and that both Safa and Boustani were “closely involved in all material aspects” of the scheme. It rejected Boustani’s attempt at trial to characterize himself as the sole “mastermind.”⁷

Safa died on January 29, 2024, in Mougins, France, before judgment was handed down.¹¹ Privinvest appealed, but the Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal in May 2026 after the company failed to comply with security conditions imposed at Mozambique’s request. The July 2024 judgment is now final against the Privinvest entities, which are also liable for the appeal’s costs.¹² In June 2025, the High Court granted Mozambique’s application to join Safa’s widow and two sons as defendants under Lebanese succession rules, so that the trial’s findings would not be left “unfinished.”¹³

Privinvest had also tried to bring President Filipe Nyusi, who was defence minister when the loans were signed, into the case as a fourth party, alleging it had contributed $11 million to his election campaign. In September 2023 the High Court ruled Nyusi was immune from suit while head of state, and the Court of Appeal upheld that ruling in February 2024.⁷

The U.S. Prosecutions

The U.S. Department of Justice charged eight people connected to the scheme, including three former Credit Suisse bankers, three former Mozambican officials, and two Privinvest executives, on charges centered on wire fraud conspiracy, money laundering, and violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

Manuel Chang

Chang was arrested at Johannesburg airport in late 2018 at U.S. request. A long extradition fight followed, with both the United States and Mozambique seeking custody. In November 2021, a South African High Court ruled that the justice minister’s decision to send Chang to Mozambique rather than the United States was irrational, and directed extradition to the U.S.⁶ He was transferred in 2023.¹⁴

On August 8, 2024, a federal jury in Brooklyn convicted Chang of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering.⁵¹⁵¹⁶

The Bankers and Boustani

Three former Credit Suisse bankers, Andrew Pearse, Surjan Singh, and Detelina Subeva, pleaded guilty to laundering bribes paid by Privinvest and taking a personal cut. Jean Boustani, the Privinvest executive who oversaw African operations and reported to Safa, was tried in the United States on charges of defrauding U.S. investors and acquitted by a federal jury in December 2019.⁶

Credit Suisse’s Regulatory Settlement

In October 2021, Credit Suisse reached a coordinated settlement with U.S. and U.K. authorities. Its subsidiary CSSEL pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud, and Credit Suisse AG entered a deferred prosecution agreement with the DOJ. The bank paid approximately $475 million in combined fines, penalties, and disgorgement to the SEC, DOJ, and the U.K. Financial Conduct Authority, and agreed to forgive $200 million in Mozambican debt.¹⁷¹⁸ VTB Capital received a separate $6 million fine from the SEC.

The Maputo Trial and Convictions

Mozambique indicted 20 people domestically in August 2019. The trial of 19 defendants opened in Maputo on August 23, 2021, and was broadcast live on television and radio. Verdicts came on December 7, 2022.¹⁹

Judge Efigenio Baptista convicted eleven defendants and acquitted eight, finding that the acquitted had been “used to launder money without knowledge of what was actually happening.” Sentences ran from 10 to 12 years on charges including embezzlement, money laundering, bribery, and criminal association. Those receiving twelve-year terms included:

Ndambi Guebuza, son of former President Armando Guebuza, found to have accepted $33 million in bribes; the judge stated he acted to “exert influence on his father” to approve the projects.
Gregório Leão, former director of the intelligence service SISE.
António Carlos do Rosário, former head of SISE’s economic intelligence unit, who chaired all three state companies.
Bruno Langa and Teófilo Nhangumele, key intermediaries in the scheme.

The court ordered Guebuza, Leão, and do Rosário to pay $2.9 billion in restitution, the total cost of the secret debt to the state. Other convicted defendants were ordered to repay all bribe money received from Privinvest.²⁰

Judge Baptista called the sentences “too lenient,” pointing to a 2019 penal code revision that had halved maximum sentences for these crimes from 24 to 12 years. He also directly linked former President Armando Guebuza to the scandal, noting that Ndambi was paid because he was “regarded as the channel to his father.” The former president himself was not a defendant.²⁰

Several defendants have since been paroled. Cipriano Mutota and Fabião Mabunda were granted parole in May 2025. Ângela Leão, wife of the former SISE director, was released on June 17, 2025, after the Supreme Court ruled that the parole eligibility rules in force at the time of the crimes applied, not the stricter 2019 code. Ndambi Guebuza was released on parole the next day, June 18, 2025.²¹

The Swiss Case

Switzerland’s Office of the Attorney General opened its own criminal investigation in 2020. In December 2025, charges were filed against UBS as Credit Suisse’s successor and against an unnamed former Credit Suisse employee.²²²³

1
CMI. Costs and Consequences of the Hidden Debt
2
Debt Justice. Mozambique: Secret Loans, Unjust Debts
3
Heinrich Böll Foundation Southern Africa. Credit Suisse: Enabler of Mega-Looting in Mozambique
4
World Finance. The Mozambique Debt Crisis
5
U.S. Department of Justice. Former Finance Minister of Mozambique Convicted
6
Spotlight on Corruption. Mozambique and the Tuna Bond Scandal
7
UK Judiciary. Republic of Mozambique v Credit Suisse and Others, Judgment
8
Banking Dive. UBS Credit Suisse Mozambique Tuna Bonds Settlement
9
Global Anticorruption Blog. Mozambique Government Announcement of Settlement of Hidden Debt Claims Against UBS
10
Club of Mozambique. Privinvest Appeal Against Mozambique in Debt Case Dismissed
11
The Africa Report. Iskandar Safa, Linked to Mozambique Hidden Debt Scandal, Has Died
12
AIM News. Hidden Debts: Privinvest Appeal Against Mozambique Dismissed
13
Jus Mundi. Privinvest Shipbuilding v Republic of Mozambique, Judgment of the High Court [2025] EWHC 1481
14
Courthouse News. US Jury Convicts Mozambique’s Ex-Finance Minister Manuel Chang in Tuna Bonds Corruption Case
15
U.S. Department of Justice. Former Finance Minister of Mozambique Sentenced
16
Reuters. Mozambique Ex-Finance Minister Sentenced in US to Eight and a Half Years in Prison Over Tuna Bonds
17
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. SEC Charges Credit Suisse and Former Executives for Fraudulent Mozambique Bond Offerings
18
Debt Justice. Credit Suisse to Be Fined $475 Million Over Mozambique Hidden Debts
19
Al Jazeera. Mozambique Ex-President’s Son, Ten Others Jailed Over Corruption
20
Open University. Mozambique 611: Debt Convictions
21
Club of Mozambique. Mozambique Ex-President’s Son Guilty in Hidden Debt Scandal Released on Parole
22
Swissinfo. UBS Shakes Off Tuna Bond Money Laundering Liability
23
Reuters. Swiss Bank Worker Cleared of Money Laundering in Mozambique Tuna Bond Scandal