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Swiss prosecutors announced on Thursday that they were abandoning financial lawsuits against Teodorin Obiang Nguema, the son of the authoritarian leader of Equatorial Guinea, but were confiscating luxury cars as part of the deal.
Obiang, 50, and two other people were prosecuted for "money laundering and embezzlement of public property."
Under the Swiss Penal Code, prosecutors may choose to abandon prosecution in this category if defendants offer compensation "and restore a situation in accordance with the law".
In a statement, the attorney general of the canton (region) of Geneva said that Equatorial Guinea also paid 1.3 million dollars "to cover the costs of the proceedings".
In addition, 25 luxury cars, seized as part of the investigation, were confiscated, according to the statement.
"They will be sold and the net proceeds from the sale will be allocated to a social program within Equatorial Guinea," the office said.
The ruling also involves the lifting of a restraining order that investigators slapped on a yacht in the Netherlands, Ebony Shine, in December 2016, he said.
The statement did not give details about the cars or the accused who owned them.
In 2016, a Swiss weekly called L & # 39; Hebdo announced that the lot included a Porsche 918 Spider worth $ 850,518, a Bugatti Veyron worth $ 2.2 million and a Swedish supercar, the Koenigsegg One: 1.
Only half a dozen Koenigsegg One: 1 models have already been built, each selling for a deemed amount of $ 2.4 million.
Obiang is the son of 76-year-old President Teodoro Obiang Nguema, who ran the tiny, oil-rich West African state since 1979, overthrowing his uncle with a coup d'etat.
Critics accuse him of brutal repression of opponents as well as electoral fraud and corruption.
Vice President in charge of defense and security, Teodorin Obiang is renowned for his playboy lifestyle.
In October 2017, a Paris court sentenced him to a three-year suspended prison sentence after convicting Obiang for misappropriating public funds to buy badets in France.
He was accused of spending more than 1,000 times his official annual salary in a six-story mansion located in a posh part of the French capital, with a fleet of fast cars and works of art. art, among other badets.
He was also given a suspended fine of $ 34 million.
In September, Brazilian media reported that Brazilian police and customs officers seized more than $ 16 million in cash and luxury watches in the luggage of a delegation accompanying Mr. Obiang during a visit. private.
A diplomatic source from Equatorial Guinea, O Estado de Sao Paulo, said the money was going to be used to pay for the medical care that Obiang would undergo in Sao Paulo.
The watches were intended for "personal use" of the president's son and bore his engraved initials, according to the report.
Obiang is famous on the fast track to succeed his father.
Last October, he was promoted directly from colonel to the post of general of division, without pbading through the intermediate rank of Brigadier General.
The next month, he was chairing a cabinet meeting for the first time.
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