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EXCLUSIVE
News | Investigation

Top Zimbabwe ambassador involved in gold smuggling

scheme
Uebert Angel, appointed by President Mnangagwa, offered undercover reporters
diplomatic cover to launder over $1bn cash.

Uebert Angel profile image Pastor-diplomat Uebert Angel is tasked with drawing investors to Zimbabwe, but
also works with his team to help smuggle gold and launder money [Al Jazeera]

By Al Jazeera Investigative Unit

23 Mar 2023
One of Zimbabwe’s most influential diplomats, Uebert Angel, offered to
use his status to launder millions of dollars through a gold-smuggling
scheme, during an undercover operation by Al Jazeera’s Investigative
Unit (I-Unit).

Angel, appointed ambassador-at-large and a presidential envoy by

Zimbabwe’s President Emmerson Mnangagwa in March 2021, told re-
porters he would be able to carry large volumes of dirty cash into the
country using his diplomatic status.

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The 44-year-old, who claims to be a prophet and heads a congregation

— the Good News Church — with branches in 15 countries, said he
would facilitate a scheme through which unaccounted cash could be ex-
changed for Zimbabwe’s gold. Recipients of the gold could then sell the
precious metal for legitimate money, effectively turning their cash
clean.

Angel and his business partner Rikki Doolan also claimed that their
laundering operations had the approval of Mnangagwa, who has been
in power since November 2017, when Zimbabwe’s controversial former
leader Robert Mugabe was ousted in a military coup.

“You want gold, gold we can do it right now, we can make the call right
now, and it’s done,” Angel told Al Jazeera’s reporters. “It will land in
Zimbabwe — Zimbabwe can’t touch it too until I get to my house. So,
there can be a diplomatic plan.”

“So, it is a very, very easy thing,” he said.

Gold Mafia - Episode 1 - The Laundry Service I Al Jazeera Investigations

Gold Mafia
Angel made the offer during an operation that was part of ‘Gold Mafia’,
an investigation into several gold-smuggling gangs in Southern Africa,
with Zimbabwe and South Africa as key hubs.

The investigation reveals how these gangs have turned Western sanc-
tions meant to target Zimbabwe’s government into an opportunity to
smuggle large quantities of gold and launder hundreds of millions of
dollars through a complex web of companies and bribes.

Al Jazeera reporters, posing as Chinese nationals who were looking to

launder large sums of money, were offered several ways to remove all
stains of corruption from their dirty cash.

Among those mechanisms was the use of Angel’s diplomatic clout.

Officially, the pastor-diplomat is tasked with finding investors to come to
Zimbabwe. However, Angel made it clear that he was willing to help
smuggle gold and launder money.

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Zimbabwe needs dollars because the country’s own currency has lost its
value in international trade due to hyperinflation. A commodity like
gold is a good way to earn dollars, but international sanctions imposed
on the country make it difficult for the government to export gold be-
cause of the additional scrutiny on officials in power.

“So you have to figure out other ways to do that,” Karen Greenaway, a
former FBI investigator who tracks international money laundering
schemes, told Al Jazeera. One way around: individual gold miners, who
don’t face those restrictions.

This scenario makes Zimbabwe fertile ground for money launderers

who can help the country earn dollars in exchange for gold.
Uebert Angel discussed laundering $1.2bn with undercover reporters [Al Jazeera]

The president’s niece

Central to Angel’s gold-for-dirty money operations is Henrietta
Rushwaya, president of the Zimbabwe Miners Association. Rushwaya,
who is also President Mnangagwa’s niece, told Angel and the reporters
on a phone call that smuggling 100kg of gold each week would be no
problem.

The scheme would need an initial investment of $10mn of dirty cash

into the government’s gold refinery, Fidelity. Of that, $5mn would be
held in reserve by Fidelity for the duration of the scam, with the rest be-
ing used every week to buy gold.

Once the gold is bought, another $5mn would be brought in to buy more
gold until all the money had been laundered into the precious metal —
which would then be sold internationally for legitimate, clean cash.
Do you have information on money laundering or want to share
another tip? Contact Al Jazeera’s Investigative Unit on +974 5080
0207 (WhatsApp/Signal), or find other ways to reach out on our
Tips page.

“They can buy the gold directly in cash, because we are the only sector
in the country that is paying in foreign exchange on a cash basis,”
Rushwaya said during the call.

Rikki Doolan discussed how Uebert Angel’s diplomatic status could be abused [Al Jazeera]

‘Number one’
During the meetings, Angel and Doolan, also a British pastor and music
artist, said everything they were doing had the blessings of ‘number
one’, referring to Mnangagwa. Doolan even offered to set up a face-to-
face meeting with Mnangagwa on the sidelines of the COP26 climate
change conference in Glasgow in 2021.

The gang also offered to help launder money by building properties

near the tourist town of Victoria Falls. This, Angel said, would be appre-
ciated by Mnangagwa because it would allow him “to cut a ribbon”, and
build his legacy as a leader who brought visible infrastructure invest-
ments into Zimbabwe.

“A politician wants to open something,” Angel told Al Jazeera’s under-

cover reporters. “Gold is easy, but there is nowhere to cut a ribbon.”
Tendai Biti, former Zimbabwe minister of finance, told Al Jazeera that
although gold trade by law should be overseen by the central bank, the
vast majority of gold is smuggled out of the country.

“We have got world class deposits of gold, but we have nothing to show
for it,” Biti said. “I think we are losing about a billion US dollars in illegal
gold exports — which is a euphemism for gold smuggling.”

“The biggest challenge Zimbabwe now faces is the existential threat that
comes from this mafia, the gold mafia.”

When asked for a response to Al Jazeera’s investigation, Fidelity denied

all involvement in money laundering or smuggling. Mnangagwa, Angel,
Doolan and Rushwaya did not respond to our inquiries.

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA

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