Shady characters around ED

SPOTLIGHT seems to bring out the best and worst of people, and sometimes their true colours. Self-proclaimed prophet Uebert Angel is among people caught off-guard by the four-episode Al Jazeera documentary.

Zimbabweans and the world at large got to hear about the man of cloth’s alleged shenanigans and how he could move large sums of money in his anointed diplomatic bag. Like a deer caught in the headlines, his base instinct took over, threatening any journalist who writes about the allegations raised in the Al Jazeera documentary.

Born Uebert Mudzanire, Angel allegedly describes himself as Mnangagwa’s chief diplomat with powers to sign treaties on behalf of the president.

Angel claims in an Al Jazeera documentary that Mnangagwa and the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) governor John Mangudya are on phone speed dial. The diplomat at large reveals that Mnangagwa has a penchant for ribbon-cutting functions.

He is not new to controversy. In 2013, he alongside another selfstyled prophet Emmanuel Makandiwa met former RBZ governor Gideon Gono and claimed that they could produce miracle money.

Angel has two different Zimbabwean national identity documents.

But he is far from alone among controversial characters that President Emmerson Mnangagwa has surrounded himself with.

Passion Java

Another self-proclaimed prophet, Passion Java has a knack of controversy.

A rubble rouser of note on social media with an unfiltered tongue, Java has been abusing his closeness with Mnangagwa with whom he has on several occasions been pictured having breakfast and taking selfies.

He has been pictured wearing a police uniform which is a crime under Zimbabwean law, but he has not been brought to book.

Tempter Tungwarara

Tempter Tungwarara, the man credited for bringing ‘billionaire’ investors and a presidential advisor, has a questionable record.

Mnangagwa has several times hailed Tungwarara describing him as ‘my blue-eyed boy.”

Mnangagwa’s blue-eyed boy is not squeaky clean as he has faced a lot of fraud charges before his meteoric rise to the president’s right hand man. Most of the stories written about him during his troublesome court days have all been removed on the internet.

Mnangagwa’s Deputy Chief Secretary Martin Rushwaya’s name features in Pandora Papers, an investigation conducted by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ)

His company is accused of facilitating the Zimbabwean military’s secret diamond dealings and off-budget financing.

Mnangagwa’s circle of associates and family continue to be implicated in dodgy activities around the country with the latest being laid bare in the explosive Al Jazeera Gold Mafia investigation.

Henrietta Rushwaya

Rushwaya is believed to be related to Mnangagwa and has been photographed several times with the president.

She is known for throwing caution to the wind when it comes to anything that involves money.

In the documentary, Rushwaya is allegedly heard in an alleged phone conversation with Angel promising to assist a fictitious Mr Stanley — an undercover Al Jazeera reporter to “clean money”.

Rushwaya allegedly gave an elaborate plan on how to launder money outside the country using her position as the Zimbabwe Miners Federation president.

The former Zimbabwe Football Association administrator, Rushwaya, was slapped with a life ban by Fifa after being convicted for being one of the masterminds of Asiagate.

In 2020, she was caught at the Robert Mugabe International Airport trying to smuggle 6,09kg of gold worth US$330 000 to Dubai.

Ewan MacMillan

The convicted gold smuggler allegedly told Al Jazeera that Mnangagwa is his business partner.

Macmillan explained how money is laundered Macmillan made the sensational claim to the television network’s undercover reporters after they asked him to help them launder millions of dollars allegedly stuck in Hong Kong.

In 2007, Macmillan was convicted of illegally possessing 1,2 kilogrammes of gold.

He was later fined $711 970 000.

Kamlesh Pattni

A Kenyan by birth, Pattni claims that he has unfettered access to Mnangagwa and several other African Heads of State.

Pattni was involved in the socalled Goldenberg scam, a gold smuggling operation that robbed Kenya of $600m and led to charges of corruption against many members of then President Daniel arap Moi’s government. After years of prosecution, Pattni was acquitted.

Pattni, who later became a selfproclaimed pastor and sometimes goes by the name Brother Paul, is now running a similar scheme in Zimbabwe from his base in Dubai.

Simon Rudland

The documentary also implicates one of Zimbabwe’s richest men, Simon Rudland who owns Gold Leaf Tobacco.

Al Jazeera’s investigation shows that his web of crime allegedly extends far beyond that, to an elaborate money-laundering and gold smuggling scheme that helps him hide millions of dollars of unaccounted cash.

Documents and witness statements reveal that Rudland also loans some of his money to Zimbabwe’s government.

Delish Nguwaya

Nguwaya, who is known as a business associate and friend of Mnangagwa’s son, Collins, has been pictured at the State House with the First family.

Nguwaya has been arrested multiple times.

In March 2017, he was prosecuted for extortion, possession of cocaine and contravening the Medicines and Allied Substances Control Act.

He was also arrested over the Covidgate scandal that saw the government paying his company Drax International US$1 million.

Nguwaya is the Zimbabwe representative of Geogenix BV that was awarded the controversial Pomona waste management deal by government.