Baltasar ‘Bello’ Ebang Engonga, a great-nephew of Equatorial Guinea’s President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, has been acquitted by the Supreme Court of the country in connection with a scandal involving approximately 400 explicit videos. Engonga, who had been the Director-General of the National Financial Investigation Agency (ANIF) before his dismissal, faced charges related to the circulation of these intimate videos, which had gone viral on social media.
The Supreme Court’s ruling on November 27, 2024, found that the sexual encounters depicted in the videos were consensual. The court emphasized that there was no evidence of coercion, abuse of power, or assault. It also referenced medical tests that showed Engonga did not transmit any sexually transmitted diseases to the individuals involved.
The scandal erupted when footage emerged showing Engonga engaged in intimate acts with several women, some of which were allegedly filmed in his office. One of the women, a light-skinned married woman, stated that while some of the recordings were consensual and deleted, others had been made without her consent. She expressed regret over the public release of the videos, which she claimed were never intended for distribution.
In the aftermath of the scandal, several husbands whose wives appeared in the videos expressed gratitude to Engonga, revealing that the footage had exposed hidden aspects of their marriages, prompting some to pursue divorce. Engonga has since announced plans to take legal action against those responsible for leaking the videos, describing the dissemination as a severe violation of his privacy that caused emotional distress for him and his family.
Before his arrest, Engonga, in his role as head of ANIF, was involved in efforts to combat crimes such as money laundering in Equatorial Guinea. However, on October 25, 2024, he was detained on accusations of embezzling significant state funds and hiding them in offshore accounts. He has not publicly addressed these allegations. Despite his acquittal in the sex tape case, the incident has sparked national debates surrounding privacy, consent, and the ethical issues surrounding the sharing of private content in the digital age.
