The Wonga Coup

by Adam Roberts

  Madrid

  Mann’s first meeting with Moto happened in Madrid early in 2003, probably in February or early March. Mann was impressed. He later recalled Moto’s studies for the priesthood and thought him a ‘good and honest man’ who planned to improve the lives of ordinary people. Moto’s chief assistant, a General Sargoso, formerly Obiang’s head of security, was also present. Mann was struck by Sargoso’s story of why he had fled to exile: he had apparently argued with the president, then Obiang had raped his wife and he had been forced to watch. True or not, the tale left a strong impression on the Briton. Moto equally warmed to the visiting former SAS man, asking if he could help arrange a ‘military escort’ to take him home. He hinted that an internal uprising by soldiers and civilians was due early in 2004. Mann agreed, later calling it a ‘necessity [to] try and help the cause’.

  Others in the Wonga Coup broadly confirm this version of events. One plotter who met Mann in London shortly after the Madrid trip thinks he was first asked for an escort to guard Moto in elections planned for April 2004. But the elections were not presidential, so quite what Moto planned to do is unclear. According to this version Mann declined, saying, ‘It’s a nice idea, but it won’t work.’ Then, some weeks later, he was called to a second meeting with Moto and told of a more daring plan: to grab power. Afterwards Mann reported that ‘this is a more serious game than I thought …[it has] changed scale’.

  Another man also confirms the broad account of events in Madrid. Crause Steyl is a tricky character to pin down. He is known as a risk-taker, a dynamic man. ‘The human material is good. He’s a very nice guy but he’s got fire in his arse,’ says a farmer friend, adding that Steyl ‘has more than the average get up and go’. One of his brothers disapproves, thinking him odd, perhaps ‘because he was weaned on goat’s milk’. A pilot with minimal formal military experience, Steyl worked with Mann from the early days in Executive Outcomes, both in Angola and Sierra Leone. Steyl frankly admits to playing a major role in the Wonga Coup. Interviewed for this book in 2005 he immediately defended the attempt: ‘We didn’t see Obiang as a baby catcher. It’s not all that wrong to get rid of him. It could have been messy, but millions in the world are dying all the time. Yes, you do something illegal, but if it had worked you would have said it’s not a bad thing.’

  Mann called Steyl in 2003 and said, in general terms, he had a new ‘project’ planned. They met at a hotel Mann favoured, the Sandton Towers in Johannesburg, where Mann said, ‘The boys have asked me to help them. I’ve not told Amanda [his wife] anything yet. I want to know if you’ll play with’, recalls Steyl. He immediately agreed. Mann did not say where in Africa the project would unfold, but he wanted a small group of important men to fly from Spain to Uganda. ‘He said I would have to arrange aircraft to do the logistics. He has a team to be picked up in Spain and I must work out a quote to move it at least as far as to Uganda from Spain. He also said it’s not necessarily Uganda.’ Afterwards Steyl browsed online and soon learned there is only one Spanish-speaking country in tropical Africa. He guessed, too, it would be oil rich: ‘And the place had to have oil. I mean, who’s going to do a coup in Zimbabwe?’ He found a country that is roughly the same distance from Spain as Uganda. ‘Until that moment I hadn’t ever heard of Equatorial Guinea,’ he admits.

  Steyl, a man fond of bravado, claims he did not hesitate over the plot. ‘I calculated we had a 30 per cent chance of success, but most coups are family feuds. That makes our one, this one, the poshest of all coup attempts. If you’re not killed in the first week, the most chance would be two years in jail. That’s all.’ And the chance of financial gain was enormous: ‘It’s better to live like a lion for one day than as a sheep for a hundred days.’ He pauses to elaborate. ‘In fact, it is better to live like a lion for a hundred days! All the projects I’ve done with Simon have been successful: in Angola; in Sierra Leone; Papua New Guinea; and in other things like equipping Angolan aircraft with spy cameras. Everything we’ve touched has turned to gold. Simon is full of ideas. He finds profitable solutions.’ Just how profitable Mann would later spell out in detail.

  7

  Assembling the Wongamen

  ‘Another bloody Moustache, that’s all we need.’

  Nigel Morgan

  Johann Smith is no angel; nor does he claim to be one. A veteran of 32 Battalion, he fought covertly in Angola (where he was twice shot) and formed close ties with Unita leader Jonas Savimbi. He worked as a liaison officer for the South Africans, gathering intelligence on the Unita leader for many years. He says that he once saved Savimbi’s life by smuggling him out of Luanda, Angola’s capital, in a diplomatic car. Smith, who now walks with a pronounced limp because of bullet wounds (and thus is called Peg Leg by some friends), eventually quit the army in the early 1990s suffering post-traumatic stress. He did not work with Executive Outcomes, now saying he was reluctant to turn against Savimbi. But he kept in touch with other veterans. The old officers (mostly white) formed a social club in Pretoria. The footsoldiers (mostly black) made a habit of visiting him, seeking work or small amounts of money, notably after Executive Outcomes closed shop. Smith helped them where he could, and in return picked up information on their activities.

  He also developed another line of interest, in Equatorial Guinea. From 1996 he visited the oil rich country regularly, forming close ties with the regime, offering information and advice. After a decade of friendly relations, the rulers in Malabo trusted white South Africans, and Smith fashioned himself as a freelance intelligence operative. He helped Obiang organise early (and badly flawed) multi-party elections and advised on political matters. He took up a trade that is popular in Africa, as a freelance intelligence man. Just as rag-and-bone merchants worked in Britain a century ago, pottering around streets on a cart pulled by a horse, loaded with junk, trading as they went, the modern intelligence dealer darts about Africa with a laptop and satellite phone, lingering in hotel bars, picking up scraps of information where he can, selling them on to willing buyers, whether corporate or government. The more sophisticated use electronic, online or other surveillance.

  Smith specialised in warning of threats to Obiang’s security, especially coup attempts. Equatorial Guinea became ‘his patch’, he says, which he guarded against other intelligence merchants. He spent time in Malabo, having made some forty visits by 2004, sometimes for months on end. He had good access to Obiang and others in the government and even became a godfather to one minister’s child. In 2000, long before the Wonga Coup was launched, he produced a report alleging that ex-mercenaries from Executive Outcomes plotted to put the exiled politician Severo Moto in office. That made some sense: Moto had been caught red-handed trying to launch a coup in 1997 and everybody expected him to try again. Another time Smith alleged that Russian special forces had sleepers in the country and were ready to seize power.

  By 2000, however, a new business opportunity arose. Several other freelance intelligence men were interested in west Africa, including a jovial and sandy-haired individual called Nigel Morgan. A Briton of Irish descent, Morgan is a former member of the Irish Guards (he calls them the Micks) where he worked in military intelligence. His character is one that the novelist Graham Greene might relish. He trained briefly as a Jesuit priest, shortly after working for a thinktank that advised Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s. Known by friends and neighbours as Nosher or Captain Pig, he has a startlingly red face, the sort that glows in a dark room, having spent years under the African sun while swallowing pints of pink gin and tumblers of whisky. His love of hearty English food, rich cheese and cigars is matched only by the pleasure he takes in spinning yarns and arguing about politics.

  By the turn of the century Morgan had met Smith and, along with a couple of others, they formed a small firm, Cogito. The goal was to sell intelligence services to Equatorial Guinea and to foreign firms that worked there. But Cogito got nowhere. Much depended on Smith producing the right introductions and, he says, a ‘sixth sense’ warned him to hol
d back. There was ample time, however, for all involved to learn that Equatorial Guinea lacked a serious defence force. Soldiers were often drunk, equipment was kept in poor repair, and levels of training were low. Smith reflects that ‘maybe even then the plan was started for a coup’. Smith was also approached directly by Greg Wales, the accountant with ties to Mann and Executive Outcomes who touted for business in Equatorial Guinea. Smith refused, unwilling to trust Wales.

  Cogito folded after another brief foray, this time to Angola. Morgan moved on, hired by a Belgian diamond mining company to end chronic theft at its operations in Congo. He recruited some ex-32 Battalion soldiers, through Smith, to be his guards. Among them was a man called Victor Dracula, an Angolan of fierce fighting pedigree, although not considered particularly bright. Once asked, outside a South African court, why he had the name Dracula, he replied, ‘I can only say this: I took blood!’ Another was Sergio Cardoso, from Sao Tome and Principe, who is described admiringly by a fellow fighter as ‘a thug, very ugly, a mulatto built like a brick shit house. But quite friendly if he doesn’t want to kill you.’ Morgan also hired a young South African communications expert, James Kershaw, as his personal assistant. A taciturn man in his early twenties with a snub nose and pale skin, Kershaw proved unusually skilled at radio, online and advanced forms of electronic communication. He and Morgan operated closely together until the anti-corruption project collapsed in 2003. All these men would later have their parts to play in the story of the Wonga Coup.

  Then, in 2003, another freelance man appeared on the scene. Servaaf Nicolaas (shortened to Nic, Niek, Nick or Nicky) du Toit was considered a ‘legend’ in the ranks of South African special forces. ‘He was a brilliant soldier, brilliant officer,’ says Smith, though the two men are not close. Another mercenary and veteran calls him ‘a good man, a gentle person, a good soldier. He was a hero in Angola.’ A lawyer who later interviewed him concludes: ‘He’s very composed, calm. He answers the bare minimum of what you ask. He is very philosophical.’ His long army career, in the special forces and fighting in Angola, was followed by a brief spell with Executive Outcomes. In 1996 he became a site manager for a mining company, Namco Diamonds, in Angola, at roughly the time Mann developed the diamond interests of Executive Outcomes there. The two got to know each other about this time.

  Du Toit’s main business appears to have been arms trading. He founded a company called Military Technical Services incorporated (MTS), based in Pretoria, and became a familiar face among traders, striking deals with various suppliers of small arms, including a state-run company called Zimbabwe Defence Industries (ZDI). He worked with another South African, Henry van der Westhuizen. The two were heard boasting they would somehow ‘change the face of Africa’. A British journalist who travelled with du Toit in Liberia in 2002 describes him as ‘an arms dealer, mercenary, chaperone’. Pictures at this time show him to be middle-aged, sporting a grey beard and dark hair. His hands are unusually large and he looks like a typical Afrikaner farmer: a bronzed and careworn Boer who has spent long days at outdoor work.

  Du Toit and Mann apparently considered investing in and running a diamond mine in Liberia early in 2003, but decided that was too risky. Instead, by the middle of that year they were collaborating on plans for a coup – often called ‘the project’ – in Equatorial Guinea. Mann later recalled he contacted du Toit ‘who was an old acquaintance and friends of a good friend of mine’ as early as May or June 2003. ‘I talked through the project with him. He also thought it was a good idea. We agreed to try and set up legitimate businesses in Equatorial Guinea. If the project went ahead, these would be useful. If the project did not go ahead, then hopefully they would make money.’

  (There are allegations that du Toit was also involved in dubious activities with rebels elsewhere. A document of unproven veracity suggests he struck a deal with some rebel soldiers in southern Congo who called themselves the PDD, for ‘Peace, Development and Democracy’, on 15 May 2003. It stated that the he would supply ‘military and financial support to the PDD’, to enable it to launch a coup in Congo. In return, du Toit would get access to mineral riches. The Congolese rebel leader was named ‘K. S. Nyembo’, but his group – if it even existed – was insignificant in that massive country.)

  Thus, by mid 2003 – some months after Mann and Moto had first met – du Toit was in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea. His cover story was that he was working for a South African security firm called Omega which was investing in new businesses. In fact he was establishing himself, and a team of front men, as the forward group for the Wonga Coup. Lucie Bourthoumieux, a French lawyer who worked for the government of Equatorial Guinea, recalls how warmly du Toit was received at the time. ‘He had been welcomed by the authorities … Malabo is a small village. It had just two or three hotels. He came saying he had money to invest, an easy way to be accepted. The authorities … they took him as their friend.’ Du Toit recruited two old military colleagues to work for him. One was Sergio Cardoso (who had worked with Morgan in Congo), the other Abel Augusto. They were allegedly there to investigate the fishing industry. They met advisers close to Obiang and the president’s younger brother, Armengol Nguema. Others followed. None were hired for their knowledge of the fishing industry, for none had any inkling of that sort of work. Du Toit hired exsoldiers and fierce fighters with histories of performing well in battles. But their only experience of tuna was eating it.

  Du Toit also met the president’s brother Armengol and they discussed agriculture and fishing. Dealing with Armengol, who has a fierce reputation as head of security in the country, meant playing for high stakes. The American State Department has described him as a torturer whose ‘minions urinated on their victims, sliced their ears and rubbed oil on their bodies to lure stinging ants’. He is barely literate (his signature on documents confirming a business relationship with du Toit is shaky, like that of a very old man), but he is not stupid. Even those close to the regime say Armengol is ‘not known as a mild-mannered man or a man that can be crossed without consequences’, and confirm he presides over a ‘heavy-handed intelligence service’.

  But du Toit’s actions soon rang alarm bells. Smith, with an eye on Equatorial Guinea and the veterans of 32 Battalion, felt a greater urge than ever to warn of a coup. He noted du Toit and his companions ‘throwing around’ money in Malabo. Though he was often rubbished, Peg Leg said evidence of future trouble was building up. If none of that were enough, an event unfolded that should have given a dazzlingly clear warning.

  In July 2003, Sao Tome and Principe, a tiny former colony of Portugal that pokes out of the Atlantic near Equatorial Guinea, saw its government toppled. The poor country is famous for nothing but, after years of searching, experts now say it has every chance of striking huge deposits of oil. Locals long knew of oil seeping from rocks in the jungle. In the 1990s American companies started looking for oil and gas fields deep offshore. Predictably – for Sao Tome suffered coup attempts – soldiers made a grab for power. They succeeded while the president, Fradique de Menezes, was abroad. They secured ministries, a radio station, the airport and other typical targets and claimed to be opposing ‘tyranny and injustice’. A few shots were fired and some grenades exploded, but no one was hurt.

  That attack by the self-proclaimed Junta of National Salvation sent a stark warning because some of the Sao Tomeans involved were ‘Buffalo Soldiers’, that is men who had fought as part of apartheid South Africa’s army, in 32 Battalion. At least one man, Alercio Costa, had also served in Executive Outcomes. And though the Sao Tomean coup was reversed in a few days, thanks to fierce political pressure from Nigeria and the United States, the putsch set a precedent for the region: hired guns could snatch power in an oil rich country. In Sao Tome the Buffalo Soldiers had a near mythical reputation. To this day they gather behind the red door of a building known as the House of Buffaloes, described by one journalist as a ‘frat house for mercenaries’, where they reminisce over old battles and plot new ones.

&n
bsp; The event inevitably concerned Smith. In the following weeks, using contacts with veterans of 32 Battalion, he learned that the old Buffalo Soldiers had not hung up their boots after the coup in Sao Tome. Costa, one of the three leaders, subsequently contacted other 32 Battalion and Executive Outcomes veterans living in Pretoria, South Africa. He also repeatedly met Sergio Cardoso, the man who had been with Morgan at the diamond mines in Congo and who now worked in Equatorial Guinea with du Toit. Cardoso met others who had been part of the coup in Sao Tome. He was learning how they did it. Then several other ex-members of 32 Battalion met Cardoso: Domingo Passaco, a former staff sergeant and special forces operative (4 Reconnaissance); Georges Allerson, a former sergeant and member of another special forces unit; Neves Matias, a specialist Small Team Operator and another veteran of the special forces. These men included some du Toit recruited to work in Equatorial Guinea, while others were recruited by Mann in South Africa. They were getting advice from colleagues who had conducted the (briefly) successful coup in Sao Tome.

  As the year moved on, Smith knew the veterans were meeting frequently and shuttling around west Africa to share information. In November, he heard a tip from a former Buffalo Soldier. A veteran called Netu came to his home in Pretoria. He had been at a hotel in Pretoria where he had heard that veterans of 32 Battalion were being recruited for a well-paid job. He had arrived too late and missed recruitment for it. Frustrated, he told Smith what he knew: soldiers were being recruited for a coup in Equatorial Guinea. Smith was unamused. ‘Yes, I was angry’, he says. ‘Others were pissing on my patch.’ He resolved to stop it.