The Court of Cassation rejected the appeal of the Vice President of Equatorial Guinea Teodorin Obiang on Wednesday. And for good reason, he was definitively convicted in France for having fraudulently built up luxury assets in part of the “ill-gotten property” affair.

“With this decision, the French justice confirms that France is no longer a haven for money embezzled by senior foreign leaders and their inner circle,” Patrick Lefas, president of the NGO in France, said in a statement. Teodorin Obiang, 52, was sentenced by the Paris Court of Appeal in February 2020 to three years of suspended prison, a fine of 30 million euros and the confiscation of all his assets seized for “laundering the abuse of social assets, embezzlement of public funds and breach of trust” between 1997 and 2011. This is the first time that a foreign leader has been definitively convicted in France in a case known as “ill-gotten property”. Investigations into the “ill-gotten gains” of African leaders and their families began in earnest in 2010 on the basis of complaints from NGOs Sherpa and Transparency International.

The cases concerning the Bongo families in Gabon and the Sassou Nguesso families in Congo-Brazzaville are still under investigation, and other foreign officials have since been targeted by similar proceedings. The courts estimated the sums laundered in France by Teodorin Obiang, son of the President of Equatorial Guinea, at 150 million euros. In particular, he acquired a mansion of nearly 3,000 m2 on Avenue Foch, in one of the most exclusive neighborhoods in Paris. Cinema, steam room, marble and gold faucets: the building was estimated at 107 million euros. With Teodorin Obiang definitively convicted, Equatorial Guinea becomes the first country to benefit from the new mechanism for the return of assets fraudulently acquired by foreign leaders, adopted by the French Parliament last week.