President’s son stole to fund playboy lifestyle
The millionaire playboy son of Equatorial Guinea’s President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo will have to give up $30 million in assets after allegedly stealing money from his own country.
Malibu-based ‘Teodorin’ Nguema Obiang Mangue must sell his California mansion, his Ferrari and most of his Michael Jackson memorabilia under the settlement. However, he will be able to keep the singer’s famous crystal-encrusted ‘Bad Tour’ glove, a jacket used during the ‘Thriller’ tour and a $38.5million Gulfstream jet, as they are currently outside the US.
Instead, the 42-year-old must pay a further $1million to cover the value of the memorabilia elsewhere, Assistant Attorney General Leslie Caldwell of the Department of Justice (DOJ) said. If these items ever re-enter America, they will be subject to seizure by the US. Government, officials told an interviewer.
Mangue, officially co-Vice-President of Equatorial Guinea, reportedly forked out $482,000 for Michael Jackson’s white, crystal-encrusted glove in the late 1980s. The singer, who died in June 2009, wore it during his first ever solo concert tour, which was launched in support of his seventh studio album, ‘Bad’. For Mangue, the glove was a prized addition to his $3.2million collection of Jackson memorabilia, which he owned alongside his $30million mansion and $530,000 Ferrari.
It seems Mangue, who has been dating Real Housewives of Atlanta ‘star’ Porsha Williams as well as Danish beauty queen Christina Mikkelsen, may be a chip off the old block. His father is known as one of Africa’s most brutal and corrupt rulers, having had his predecessor, his own uncle, executed and his opponents tortured, while pillaging his own country’s oil wealth.
Neither is this Mangue’s first offence. In Paris in 2008 he owned one of only 30 examples at the time of the Bugatti Veyron 16.4 sports car (then estimated at 1,100,000 euros) and a Maserati MC 12 at 700,000 euros. He subsequently went on to purchase another Bugatti Veyron, and tried to purchase a third but, in late 2011, both Veyrons, as well as 9 other cars he owned were seized by French police investigating corruption. In July 2013, the confiscated goods were sold at auction.
The US settlement, announced by the Department of Justice last Friday, will see Mangue turn over around $20million from the sale of his assets to a charitable organization for the benefit of the people of Equatorial Guinea.
