By Thomas Chandan
Mozambique’s post- electoral violence, civil and political unrest has the country teetering on a knife edge crisis that has seen the reported dissapearances and death of scores of anti- establishment activists.
There are reports that scores of Mozambicans have fled the country fearing persecution by the Frelimo led security forces that were dispatched to prop up President Daniel Fransisco Chapo at all costs.
Violent protests broke out with at least 250 people being killed in Mozambique unrest after the country’s topmost court’ election decision on 23 December 2024 that Chapo and his Frelimo party, which has ruled the country since 1975, won the November 9 election with 65, 17 percent of the vote, against opposition politician Venancio Antonio Bila Mondlane’ s 24 , 29 percent.
As the death toll continues to soar,scores of Mozambicans abandoned their homes and livelihoods and fled to neighbouring countries including at least 13, 0000 feeling to Malawi and more bolting to Zimbabwe and South Africa in fear of their lives.
It recently surfaced that the Frelimo regime, bent on clinging to power at all costs, quickly turned on several government workers seen as syphathetic to the opposition movement led by Mondlane.
Information at hand indicates that the hounding of government workers by the Mozanbican authorities has opened a can of worms whose stinking whiff reaches all the way to Pyongyang, the Capital of North Korea, the smugglers State.
Joao, hitherto a government employee who worked in one of Mozambique’ s security branches is on the run and now living on borrowed time in an undisclosed location outside the country following a witch-hunt by state security agents who accused him of having filial political ties to Mondlane.
The former security expert, who since 2022 had been investigating a Nothern Korean ivory and rhino horns smuggling ring, says some known top Frelimo and government officials have been thwarting his investigations.
“From the beginning, i found it difficult to conduct my investigations of the smuggling of rhino horns and ivory through Mozambique because everytime i followed leads and obtained sensitive information, i hit a snag as i was told that top officials in the Ministerial fis Interior( Mozambique’ s Interior Ministry) had given directives to put a lid on the line of investigations i was doing,” Joao says.
According to media reports which broke out in September 2023, the underground syndicate was run by one Han Tae- Song a disgraced veteran North Korean diplomat whose known penchant for smuggling an assortment of contraband incliding cigarrettes under diplomatic cover, dates back to the early nineties.
The shadowy network oversaw loads of ill-gotten rhino horns and ivory poached from Botswana and South Africa being ferried across borders through the complicity of wildlife officials, human mules, truck drivers, border officials and end buyers of Asian origin.
“In july 2024, i obtained clinical information indicating a smugling relationship between Han Tae-Song and Yun Kil another North Korean diplomat said to have been running the South African end i received instructions from Ministo do Interior Ronda’s Office not to further pursue the line of investigation”, Joao says.
Interior Minister Pascal Ronda was appointed by Mozambique’s President Filipe Nyusi in August 2023 to Arse Massingue, who was sacked under unclear circumstances
Prior to his appointnentas Interior Minsiter Ronda during his stint as Mozambique’ s chief of police between 1995 and 2001 was involved in a financial corruption scandal thay saw him connive with fellow senior police officers in setting up a shadowy business venture that divert government money and circumvented the national budget through the illegal purchase of arms and uniforms for the police.
The investigator says discreet inquiries made in November 2023 revealed that on 24 September 2022 in Mozambique’ s capital Maputo, Yi Kang- Dae,an elusive North Korean intelligence officer acting on hehalf of Hae Tae- Song, paid a hefty sum of US40, 000 cash to one Fernando Sitoe, a Mozambican broker said to be associated with Mozambique’s brass.
“This was bribe money paid to facilitate a smooth movement of smuggled rhino horns using Mozambique’s borders with South Africa and Zimbabwe as well as to avoid police checks on the roads leading to Quelimane and Inhambane seaports which ivestigations concluded were used to ship out two illegal consignments betwen November 2022 and February 2023,” the investigator reveals.
Yi Kang- Dae and his shadowy accomplice reportedly went underground following a breaking news article by a Botswana based newspaper that fingered him in the 2022 snd 2023 rhino horns smuggling deals.
The sinister connection to North Korea, the Mozambican investigator firmly says was established after an insider who witnessed the $40 , 000 payment paid by Yi Kang-Dae to Sitoe made a stunning confession to the investigator.
“The informant who witnessed Sitoe administering the distribution of the illegal payments to government officials confirmed that Yi Kang- Dae explicitly told Sitoe that he was acting on behalf of Ambassador Han Tae- Song. Yi Kang Dae mentioned Han’s name in a manner that emphasized the serious nature of the operarion, the former investigstor explains.
So how much did the Frelimo government know about the illegal transaction happening right under their noses? Was there a cover up of sorts to protect the North Korean smugglers?
“The government’ Joao reveals,through the Ministerio da Economia eFinancas ” Mozambique’s Finance Ministry had obtained information that it was the same Yun Kil who had attempted to step up to North Korea’ s illegal operations in South Africa and Mozambique in a rhino smuggling deal worth US$ 65 m in 2022″.
Reeling under international sanctions, North Korea desperately needs significant funding to sustain and further develop its nuclea weapons programme, which is being done at the expense of its hungry masses.
International observers say the Frelimo regime has a track record of protecting repressive governments like the one in North Korea at the expense of Mozambican people’s human rights.
After much digging, the investigator dutifully shared their critical information with lead case officers at the Mozambique Republic Police, but says instead received strict instructions in March 2024 to drop investigating and to immediately submitt all material to superiors as the Interior Minister Pascal Ronda had tasked his own investigation team to handle the case.
“Their investigations did not yield results, and the case was killed off,” Joao says adding that before the State’s persecution, information had surfaced that a top official (name withheld) in Mozambique’ s Interior Ministry may have had connections with Yi Kang- Dae through one Simon Ernesto Valoyi, a recently convicted rhino horns smuggler and organised crime boss.
Top governement officials, in an apparent abuse of power did not want the investigator sniffing anywhere near the North Koreans, Joao says.
Yi Kang Dae vanished into thin air in 2023 with his accomplice after successfully hauling the two large shipments of rhino horns and ivory to the Orient in November 2022 and February 2023, using a Chinese vessel.
Following the famaging exlose in December 2023 North Korea recalled Ambassador Han Tae-Song from his posting as top envoy to the United Nations Office in Geneva, Switzerland.
Also known as ‘Navara’ in crime circles, Valoyi was together with his accomplice Paulo Zucula,found guilty and convicted in August 2024 for the illicit trafficking of rhino horns following a 27 July 2022 sting operation spearheaded by the Servico Nacional de Investigacion Criminal and country’ s wildlife Justice Commission in the capital Maputo. The two were sentenced to 27 to 24 years respectively in prison in Maputo.
The defiance of standing United Nations resolutions and sanctions , it is understood that between September 2023 and August 2024, top government officials from North Korea’ s ruling Workers Party of Korea held four clandestine meetings with President Nyusi’s cabinet to explore areas of cooperation including maritime and ship building, military assistance, health aid to Mozambique and trade.
It has been established that three of these meetings were held online while one was a hush-hush visit on 27 June 2024 in which three North Korean officials were dispatched by the country’ s foreign affairs minister Choe Son-Hui to initiate cooperation build for 2025 and beyond pending the outcome of October 2024 elections.
As the dragnet closes in on North Korea’ s illicit activities abroad , indication are that North Korea maybe extending its deal with Mozambique to have an extended stay for a huge contigent of North Korean medical doctors in violation of UN Security Council resolution 2397 that bans North Korea from benefitting from exported labour( readers please note that we will soon run an investigative story on this sensitive issue)
The Ministry of External Economic Relations which is North Korea’ s foreign trade arm continues to exploit trade sanctions loopholes by seeking to drive its desperate bid for friends especially with oppressive regimes in developing countries.
*Due to the unfortunate circumstances occasioned by the ongoing political violence and repression in Mozambique, the former investigator’ s actual name has been veiled,on their own request to protect their identity.
