Former Mozambique Finance Minister Manuel Chang, released by US prison authorities, remains detained, now in the custody of the ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) immigration services, according to official sources consulted this Saturday, March 28, by Lusa.
According to information from that agency, Chang, 70, is “in ICE custody”, detained at the Plymouth County Correctional Facility, in Massachusetts, although no further information about the process is available.
Manuel Chang was arrested and convicted as part of the hidden debts case, discovered in 2016 and estimated at 2.7 billion dollars (2.3 billion euros)according to the Mozambican Public Ministry (MP).
Lusa contacted Manuel Chang’s lawyers in New York about this arrest, but there has been no response so far.
Lusa reported on Friday that the former Mozambican Finance Minister was no longer in the custody of North American prison authorities, with the expected release period coming to fruition.
According to information from the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) of the United States of America (USA), Chang, 70 years old, “is no longer in custody” of those prison services since Thursday, March 26, 2026, seven years after his arrest as part of the hidden debts process, followed by extradition to Mozambique.
The release date had already been confirmed by the federal court for the Eastern District of New York (EDNY), when it refused, on February 12, the request for early release for health reasons presented by the defense.
The EDNY, in Brooklyn, sentenced Chang to 102 months in prison a year ago, but last month rejected early release, according to a decision to which Lusa had access, with judge Nicholas Garaufis considering that there were no “extraordinary and convincing” reasons that justified it, but confirming the release on March 26.
Chang, who led Mozambique’s finances from 2005 to 2015, was detained at the FCI federal prison in Danbury, Connecticut, and intended to be released before the end of his sentence, citing health reasons, conditions of detention and errors in attributing credits to reduce the time of the sentence already served, as he had been deprived of his liberty since December 2018, when he was detained in South Africa.
Manuel Chang was sentenced at the EDNY on January 17, 2025 to 102 months (eight and a half years) in prison for conspiracy to commit wire fraud and money laundering in the Mozambique hidden debts case.
The sentence was significantly reduced due to the administrative credits awarded by the BOP, which accounted for the time already spent in preventive detention and good behavior while detained. These credits reduced the initial sentence to around 14 months, setting his release for March 26, which has since been completed.
Before his conviction in New York, Chang had already spent around six years in custody while awaiting trial, between South Africa and subsequent extradition to the USA.
Chang was accused of accepting bribes and conspiring to divert funds from Mozambique’s efforts to protect and expand the natural gas and fishing industries, in a plan to enrich itself and deceive investors.
During the trial, prosecutors accused Chang of collecting seven million dollars (6.1 million euros at current exchange rates) in bribes, transferred through North American banks to an associate’s European accounts, but which the former minister denied.
In total, Chang and other participants embezzled more than $200 million (173.5 million euros), affecting investors in the U.S. and elsewhere by misrepresenting how the loan proceeds would be used and causing them to suffer substantial losses, prosecutors contended.
The defense claimed that Chang was doing what his government wanted, when he signed the promises that Mozambique would repay the loans, and that there was no evidence of a financial compensation for the then ruler.
Between 2013 and 2016, three companies controlled by the Mozambican Government discreetly took out million-dollar loans from large foreign banks, allegedly to finance a fleet of tuna vessels, a naval shipyard, Coast Guard ships and radar systems to protect natural gas fields off the coast of the Indian Ocean.
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