Zimbabwe: President’s Niece, Popular Pastor Indicted In Money Laundering, Gold Smuggling Scheme

An investigation by Qatari media giant, Al-Jazeera has uncovered how top Zimbabwe’s top government officials collude with foreigners to launder gold and smuggle gold out of the southern African country.

The first part of the investigation which was released on Thursday detailed how popular Zimbabwean pastor and diplomat, Uebert Angel met with undercover journalists to use his diplomatic cover to carry large volumes of dirty cash into Zimbabwe as part of a laundering operation also involving gold smuggling.

Angel claimed that President Emerson Mnangagwa was aware of his schemes.

“I can call the president now, not tomorrow, now and put him on speaker, it’s not an issue,” he said. “We are the government.”

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.

The investigation also implicated Henrietta Rushwaya, a niece to Zimbabwe’s president in the gold smuggling ring.

Checks by THE WHISTLER showed that as of press time, the ZImbabwe government is yet to issue any official response to the investigation.