A court in Equatorial Guinea has sentenced a senior government official to eight years in prison for embezzlement, months after he made international headlines over a sex tape scandal.
The Bioko provincial tribunal found Baltasar Ebang Engonga, the former head of the national financial investigation agency, guilty of diverting funds allocated for professional travel expenses for personal use, the country’s supreme court press director, Hilario Mitogo, confirmed in a WhatsApp message to reporters.
Engonga, popularly known as “Bello”, was accused alongside five other senior officials of embezzling hundreds of thousands of dollars in the oil-rich Central African nation.
The official became notorious in November 2024, when sex tapes featuring him and other officials’ wives surfaced on social media. Some of the videos were allegedly filmed inside his office at the finance ministry while he was under investigation for financial crimes.
The scandal sparked a wave of online parodies, including viral songs, memes, and a spoof virility product humorously dubbed “Balthazariem.”
Mitogo said the provincial court imposed an eight-year jail sentence and a fine of $220,000 on Engonga, signaling a rare but significant anti-corruption move in a country long criticized for governance and accountability issues.
