A Tangled Web: Criminally-motivated kidnappings in Mozambique

Kidnapping for ransom in Mozambique is a rapidly evolving phenomenon, with the country witnessing a marked increase in the number of incidents since 2011. According to a regionally based representative of Terra Firma, initially these kidnappings targeted wealthy Pakistani businesspeople and were linked to foreign crime syndicates that exported their activities to Mozambique. However, increasing numbers of kidnappings have been reported involving Mozambican businesspeople and Portuguese nationals with a long-term presence in the country, raising concerns that local crime syndicates have begun to copy their foreign counterparts and set up their own kidnapping rings. Although official statistics are unreliable, due to the number of incidents that go unreported and the alleged involvement of police personnel, it is estimated that there were 40 prominent kidnapping cases in Mozambique between 2013 and 2014, almost three times the number of reported incidents between 2011 and 2012. The actual figure is likely to be much higher. These latest criminal kidnaps, often characterised by high ransom demands, tight co-ordination, excessive violence and alleged police collusion, are markedly different from the politically-motivated abductions of Mozambique’s civil war (1977-1992). 

In 2011, criminal kidnappings mainly targeted Mozambique’s Asian community and the affected families rarely involved the authorities. However, as the kidnappings became increasingly common, local religious and civil society organisations took to the streets demanding that the government intervene. Following protests in 2013, authorities linked the wave of kidnappings to a single crime syndicate, headed by former Mozambique and Angola–based businessman turned organised crime kingpin, Momad Bakhir Ayoob. With a lull in incidents after Ayoob’s disappearance in 2013, authorities were optimistic that the kidnapping trend would decline. However, a spate of high-profile kidnappings in late 2014 and the more recent abduction of two Portuguese nationals in Maputo, in February 2015, has raised concerns that kidnapping for ransom is far more entrenched in the Mozambican underworld than was initially thought. Ayoob’s success in targeting the Asian community seems to have motivated local criminals to copy these attacks to fund their own crime syndicates. Moreover, as kidnapping proves increasingly successful in garnering revenue, targets have expanded to include both the middle class and the families, including children, of wealthy businesspersons, with many Mozambique nationals now temporarily relocating their families to the town of Nelspruit in neighbouring South Africa. 

However, these kidnappings are not simply a consequence of the petty criminality associated with Mozambique’s struggling economy and increasing poverty levels. Rather, they are reflective of broader concerns with the country’s political leadership and weak security apparatus, which has produced an environment conducive to the proliferation of organised crime. In this regard, Mozambique has emerged as a major transit point for narcotics from South and Central Asia to Africa and Europe, whilst high levels of corruption have fostered money-laundering activities. In an explicit display of the audacity of organised crime networks in Mozambique, Maputo has been hit by a wave of shootings since 2011 targeting prominent judges and investigating officers involved in high profile corruption and organised crime cases in attacks echoing mafia-style assassinations. These incidents are rarely investigated thoroughly by the authorities. 

Organised crime has a long history in Mozambique. During the post-independence and conflict years, both the ruling Front for the Liberation of Mozambique (FRELIMO) and the opposing Mozambican National Resistance (RENAMO), engaged in criminal activities to advance their political objectives. In the post-conflict era, such connections have proven useful in consolidating both RENAMO and FRELIMO’s respective political positions, most evident in the controversial financing scheme between the US-sanctioned narcotics kingpin, Mohamed Bashir Suleiman, and FRELIMO. Suleiman is closely tied to kidnapping gangs in Mozambique through his son-in-law, Ayoob. In November 2014, this criminal web of kingpins and political heavyweights was exposed when Suleiman himself was kidnapped in Maputo, in what many believe to have been a revenge attack. Nevertheless, Suleiman’s connections seemed to have been used during Ayoob’s arrest in 2012. Although the Police Special Operations Group arrested Ayoob, the presiding magistrate claimed the police had not provided enough evidence to hold him, subsequently ordering his release, and raising suspicions that Ayoob held friendships in higher places. It is further alleged that corrupt police officers assisted Ayoob with his subsequent disappearance. 

Corruption and collusion at high levels in the Mozambican government have meant that criminal gangs continue to evade arrest and conviction. Criminal gangs are often better organised and better equipped than the police forces, which suffer from low morale and limited resources. Moreover, with alleged connections to increasingly lucrative organised crime gangs, it may not be in the interest of Mozambique’s political elite to combat organised crime. Newly-appointed president, Filipe Nyusi, who came to office in January 2015, has a difficult task ahead of him. While eliminating both corruption and organised crime were key pillars of Nyusi’s election campaign, critics pointed out that Suleiman sat only a few seats away from Nyusi at a FRELIMO fundraising event in September 2014. Any progress in combatting organised crime is therefore expected to be slow, suggesting that 2015 will be characterised by yet another increase in kidnappings.