Raphael Johnson
Equatorial Guinea’s political corridors have been rattled once again as Baltasar Ebang Engonga, better known by his nickname “Bello”, has been sentenced to eight years in prison and fined $220,000 for embezzlement. His fall from grace has gripped the small, oil-rich Central African nation — not only because of the stolen millions but also due to the lurid sex scandal that made him a global spectacle.
The Bioko provincial tribunal convicted Engonga of siphoning off public money meant for official travel expenses and diverting it to his personal use. According to Hilario Mitogo, press director of the Supreme Court, Engonga was found guilty alongside five other senior officials accused of looting hundreds of thousands of dollars from the state.
Once hailed as the powerful head of the national financial investigation agency — a man charged with fighting financial crimes — Engonga’s reputation came crashing down in November 2024, when explicit videos of him with wives of fellow government officials surfaced online.
Some of the clips, astonishingly, were allegedly filmed inside his finance ministry office, turning what should have been the bastion of accountability into the stage for a national scandal. The leaks spread like wildfire on social media, sparking outrage, ridicule, and an avalanche of parody content. Satirists and musicians seized on the moment, flooding TikTok and WhatsApp with remixes and skits, while jokers coined a fake male-enhancement pill named “Balthazariem” in mocking tribute to his exploits.
What might have remained a shadowy corruption trial was suddenly transformed into a cultural firestorm, exposing not just one man’s vices but also the fragile moral fabric of a government long accused of shielding its elites.
For ordinary Equatoguineans, Engonga’s disgrace was both shocking and symbolic: the man who once investigated fraudsters had become the nation’s most notorious fraudster. His double life — the respectable anti-corruption czar by day and a self-indulgent playboy by night — embodied the contradictions of a state where wealth flows from oil but rarely trickles down to the people.
The sentencing has been hailed by some as a sign that the government is finally serious about tackling graft. Yet critics remain skeptical, questioning whether Engonga is simply a high-profile scapegoat while deeper networks of corruption remain untouched.
For Engonga, however, the verdict is final. From the trappings of power to the glare of viral infamy, and now to the confines of a prison cell, his journey has become a cautionary tale — a dramatic reminder that in Equatorial Guinea, lust and loot make for a deadly cocktail of downfall.