Equatorial Guinea is a nation of under 1 million people that has been gushing oil for 15 years. It enjoys a real per capita GDP higher than France’s, according to the World Bank, butperhaps because it is tied with Zimbabwe on Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Indexits place on the United Nations’s Human Development Index is closer to South Africa’s. Much of Equatorial Guinea’s wealth allegedly flows to two people: President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, who has ruled the country since executing his uncle in 1979; and Vice President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mangue, who is the president’s son and heir apparent. Known locally as Little Theodor, the younger Nguema may be remembered by history as the kleptocrat who went too far.
Beginning in 2000, prosecutors say, the younger Nguema embarked on a $315 million buying spree in Europe andwith the help of U.S. lawyersin the United States. Corruption monitoring groups call his actions money laundering, and prosecutors agree. His defense lawyers say that the ways Nguema earned his money are perfectly legal in Equatorial Guinea. Still, in a startling policy departure, France and the U.S. are each trying to claw back what they see as ill-gotten gains from a sitting leader of a nation with close ties to the West.
