Maputo — The Mozambican police and the Attorney-General's Office (PGR) on Saturday seized over 40 million meticais in banknotes (625,000 US dollars at the current exchange rate) from a Maputo residence.
According to a note from the Central Office for the Fight against Organised and Transnational Crime (GCCCOT), a specialist branch of the PGR, it was not possible to count such large sums of money on the spot, and so the cash was taken to the PGR headquarters.
There the money was counted in the presence of two suspects and their lawyers. The suspects are both Mozambicans who have dual nationality. The police did not reveal the other nationality. The suspects claim they are businessmen.
Inside the PGR a manual count of the cash showed that over 40 million meticais had been seized, plus a variety of electronic devices. No details of these were given.
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The GCCCOT director, Amelia Machava, told reporters the money would now be taken to the Bank of Mozambique, and deposited in an account opened by the PGR's Assets Management Office. The central Bank would do a full count.
Machava said "there are suspicions of fiscal fraud, money laundering and other crimes, which can be ascertained during the investigations'.
Machava revealed that, in a separate case, no fewer than 30 employees of the Finance Ministry and of the Tax Authority, plus two magistrates, have been detained. She gave no details of the corruption charges these suspects are facing.
She added that the homes of the two magistrates were searched on Saturday.
Machava said these detentions were not made lightly, but are supported by a large amount of evidence which, she believed, could lead to convictions.
Another special unit of the PGR, the Central Office for the Recovery of Assets (GCRA) revealed at the weekend that since its creation, five years ago, it has seized assets valued at 27.185 billion meticais from criminal hands.
The GCRA director, Ana Sheila Marrengula, told reporters that the seizure of such large sums showed there are people in Mozambican society who display levels of enormous wealth that are incompatible with their legitimate and declared incomes.
Speaking at a national meeting of the GCRA, Marrengula said her office is facing serious challenges, including acquiring a larger budget so that it can open provincial delegations, and carry out speedier and more fruitful investigations.
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She added that the GCRA needs modern technologies to analyse financial data, and track complex flows of funds.
The Attorney-General, Americo Letela, added that the struggle against organised crime, money laundering and the financing of terrorism, demands efficient mechanisms for recovering assets.
"International experience', he said, "has shown that it is not enough to investigate, to charge, and to sentence. It is also necessary to deprive the criminals of the economic benefits that feed their behaviour'.
