Former Mozambican finance minister Manuel Chang is no longer in the custody of United States prison authorities, with his scheduled release taking effect, an official source confirmed to Lusa today.
According to information from the United States Bureau of Prisons (BOP), Chang, 70, “is no longer in custody” as of Thursday, March 26, 2026, seven years after his detention in connection with the hidden debts case, ahead of his extradition back to Mozambique.
The release date had previously been confirmed by the federal court for the Eastern District of New York (EDNY), which on February 12 rejected a request from the defense for early release on health grounds.
The EDNY in Brooklyn sentenced Chang a year ago to 102 months in prison, but last month rejected early release, according to a decision accessed by Lusa. Judge Nicholas Garaufis ruled that there were no “extraordinary and compelling” reasons to justify early release, while confirming the release date of March 26.
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The judge also found insufficient legal grounds for early release, despite the defense citing kidney problems, hypertension, diabetes, and hyperlipidemia.
Chang, who led Mozambique’s finance ministry from 2005 to 2015, had been detained at the federal prison FCI Danbury in Connecticut and sought early release citing health reasons, detention conditions, and errors in crediting time served, having been in custody since December 2018 when he was arrested in South Africa.
Manuel Chang was sentenced by the EDNY on January 17, 2025, to 102 months (eight and a half years) for conspiracy to commit wire fraud and money laundering in connection with Mozambique’s hidden debts scandal. Photo: Phill Magakoe/AP Photo
The sentence was significantly reduced due to administrative credits awarded by the BOP, which counted time spent in pre-trial detention and good behavior while imprisoned. These credits reduced the initial sentence to roughly 14 months, setting the release date to March 26, which has now been carried out.
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Prior to his conviction in New York, Chang spent about six years in custody awaiting trial, in South Africa and following extradition to the US.
Chang was accused of accepting bribes and conspiring to divert funds from Mozambique’s efforts to protect and expand its natural gas and fisheries industries, in a scheme to enrich himself and defraud investors. During the trial, prosecutors stated that Chang collected seven million dollars (6.1 million euros at current exchange rates) in bribes, transferred through US banks to European accounts of an associate, though the former minister denied wrongdoing.
In total, Chang and other participants diverted more than 200 million dollars (173.5 million euros), impacting investors in the US and elsewhere by misrepresenting how loan funds would be used and causing substantial losses, prosecutors said.
The defense argued that Chang acted under the directives of the government when signing guarantees for Mozambique to repay the loans and that there was no evidence of personal financial gain.
Between 2013 and 2016, three government-controlled companies in Mozambique discreetly took out multi-million-dollar loans from major foreign banks. Chang signed guarantees that the government would repay the loans, which were crucial for creditors. The funds were intended to finance a tuna fleet, a shipyard, coast guard vessels, and radar systems to protect offshore natural gas fields in the Indian Ocean.
However, bankers and government officials diverted the loan money, US prosecutors stated.
Discovered in 2016, the debts were estimated at around 2.7 billion dollars (approximately 2.3 billion euros), according to the Mozambican Public Prosecutor’s Office. The Mozambican government reached out-of-court agreements with creditors in an attempt to repay part of the debt.
