A new coterie of unelected intermediaries is allegedly gatekeeping foreign investment and exerting influence over the judiciary, fuelling fears of state capture in the resource-rich nation.
By Foreign Correspondent
In the VIP terminals of Maputo International Airport, the arrival of chartered jets from Luanda signals more than routine business travel.
According to flight logs and aviation records examined by this publication, frequent landings of private aircraft, often operated by Angolan firms BestFly and Lanceria, have become a visible marker of an informal power structure shaping state decisions in Mozambique.
Beyond the runway, the implications extend deep into the country’s political economy.
While President Daniel Chapo’s government publicly courts global energy majors such as TotalEnergies and ExxonMobil to develop Mozambique’s vast natural gas reserves, a shadow network of brokers has, according to multiple business and government sources, positioned itself as a decisive gatekeeper for foreign investment.
Operating without formal mandates or official portfolios, these figures are alleged to be steering capital from Nigeria, Angola, and China into strategic sectors, frequently bypassing established oversight and regulatory scrutiny.
The pattern has fuelled growing concern that key levers of the state are being quietly captured by private interests, hollowing out institutional authority.
Documents reviewed by this publication describe a web of ostentatious wealth and influence-peddling linking a controversial microbank, relatives of disgraced former officials, and a Zimbabwean social-media personality with a criminal past.
At the centre of this ecosystem is Alcides Viegas Chihono.
He holds no public office and no known government contract. Still, according to multiple sources within Maputo’s business community and civil service, Chihono has emerged as a crucial fixer for foreign entities seeking access to Mozambique’s mining, oil, and telecommunications sectors.
Several sources allege that investors pursuing approval for multimillion-dollar projects are discreetly advised to “check in” with Chihono before engaging with formal bureaucratic processes.
This alleged parallel approval channel, operating outside statutory frameworks, is said to have eroded the authority of regulatory institutions.
Senior officials, including the Secretary of State for the Economy, have reportedly faced pressure to align decisions with directives originating from informal networks.
One governance expert described the effect starkly. “We are seeing a hollowing out of the state,” said the analyst, who requested anonymity for fear of reprisals. “When a minister takes instructions from a private broker, the social contract is broken. Expertise is replaced by proximity to power.”
While Chihono is described as operating largely out of public view, the network’s most visible figure is a man known publicly as “Cantoná,” an apparent nickname.
Known for conspicuous consumption and a meteoric rise seemingly untethered from any declared business success, Cantoná has attracted the attention of investigators monitoring suspicious capital flows.
If Chihono is the fixer, sources say, Cantoná is the spectacle.
That spectacle intersects with a familiar regional figure. Cantoná’s activities reportedly overlap with those of Wicknell Chivayo, a Zimbabwean businessman and social-media personality known as “Sir Wicknell.”
Chivayo served a prison sentence in South Africa in 2004 following a currency-fraud conviction and has since rebranded himself as a philanthropist, frequently gifting luxury vehicles to religious leaders and politically connected figures across Southern Africa.
Sources allege that this gifting culture has crossed into Mozambique. Cantoná is said to have received three high-end vehicles, a Range Rover Vogue, a Mercedes-Benz G63, and a Mercedes-Benz C-Class, mirroring patronage tactics commonly associated with Chivayo in Harare.
Regulators say the concern lies not only in the vehicles themselves but in the opaque capital flows they may signify.
Cantoná and his associates are also linked to the establishment of a new microbank.
Financial-intelligence analysts warn that the institution, backed by partners with controversial reputations in their home jurisdictions, could serve as a conduit for illicit funds, exploiting Mozambique’s weak anti-money-laundering safeguards and fragile banking supervision.
The most alarming dimension of the network is its alleged connection to the “hidden debts” scandal that plunged Mozambique into crisis in 2016.
That episode, triggered by $2 billion in undisclosed, state-backed loans, led to severe austerity and the arrest and extradition of former finance minister Manuel Chang, who remains in United States custody.
Despite Chang’s downfall, his family’s influence appears to persist. Ingilo Dalsuco, a property developer and Chang’s son-in-law, is identified in documents reviewed by this publication as a key institutional operator within the network.
If Cantoná is the public face, sources describe Dalsuco as the system, discreet, methodical, and deeply embedded.
Since 2015, Dalsuco has reportedly overseen the sale of state real estate assets valued at approximately 800 million meticais, or about $12.5 million.
Sources describe a rapid accumulation of wealth, including vehicle fleets and luxury properties, that appears to outpace his known legitimate business income.
More troubling are allegations by two legal sources that Dalsuco wields influence within the Attorney General’s Office (PGR).
They describe an atmosphere of pressure and apprehension in parts of the judiciary, where sensitive cases involving the network are allegedly discussed and resolved in private meetings rather than open court.
“If the Attorney General’s Office is compromised, there is no backstop,” said a Maputo-based legal analyst, also speaking on condition of anonymity. “The perception that justice is negotiated behind closed doors deters legitimate investment and keeps Mozambique stuck on the FATF grey list.”
The dynamics unfolding in Mozambique mirror a broader regional pattern, from Zimbabwe to Angola, in which political and business elites leverage informal networks to extract rents from natural resources.
In Mozambique’s case, the involvement of Nigerian and Chinese capital points to a shifting geopolitical landscape, one in which opaque, politically brokered deals increasingly replace the conditional aid and transparency requirements traditionally imposed by Western donors and institutions such as the International Monetary Fund.
For ordinary Mozambicans, the consequences are tangible. When state assets are quietly sold by relatives of disgraced officials, or when banking licences are allegedly granted to questionable actors, fewer resources remain for clinics, schools, and basic infrastructure.
As Mozambique approaches its next electoral cycle, a stark question hangs over Maputo’s glass office towers and crowded informal settlements alike: whether the state retains the capacity, or the political will, to dismantle these shadow networks, or whether the practice of “checking in” with unelected intermediaries has already become the country’s permanent way of doing business.
