Public official arrested after more than 400 sex tapes leaked of him ‘sleeping with wives of prominent people’

Hundreds of sex tapes involving a senior Equatorial Guinean official with other men’s wives have made the rounds on social media, prompting authorities to try to limit their spread.

In the videos, the married director of the National Financial Investigation Agency (ANIF), Baltasar Ebang Engonga, is seen in flagrante delicto with various partners – including the wives of prominent officials – in his office at the Ministry of Finance.

On Monday, the country’s Vice President Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue announced on X that the government will order the ‘immediate suspension of all civil servants who have had sexual relations in the ministries’ offices, as this constitutes a clear violation of the code of conduct and the law on public ethics.’

This is not the first time that sex tapes with officials have been leaked on social media.

But the affair has been blown up to unprecedented proportions due to the notoriety of the officials involved.

In leaked sex tapes, the married director of the National Financial Investigation Agency (ANIF), Baltasar Ebang Engonga (pictured), is seen in flagrante delicto with various partners – including the wives of prominent officials – in his office at the Ministry of Finance

Last week, Obiang said he had given 24 hours’ notice to Equatorial Guinea’s telecommunications ministry, regulators and telephone companies ‘to curb the distribution of pornographic videos flooding social networks in Equatorial Guinea.’

“As a government, we cannot continue to see families destroyed,” said the vice president in charge of defense and security.

According to accounts first spread by Whatsapp groups and then posted on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and X, Engonga shot more than 400 pornographic videos in his office.

Nicknamed “Bello” because of his good looks, Ebang Engonga is a married father and son of Baltasar Engonga Edjo, the current chairman of the Commission of the Central African Economic and Monetary Community.

He is also related to the country’s longtime president, Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo.

The sex tapes were leaked on social networks at a time when he had been remanded in Malabo’s notorious Black Beach prison in a case of embezzlement of public funds, according to state broadcaster TVGE.

Equatorial Guinea’s chief prosecutor Anatolio Nzang Nguema assured TVGE that if medical tests revealed that Ebang Engonga was ‘infected with a sexually transmitted disease’, he would be prosecuted for an offense against ‘public health’.

The flow of internet traffic, and especially the downloading of images, has been seriously disrupted in the country after the authorities took measures to curb the spread of the sex tapes, witnesses told AFP.

Equatorial Guinea’s Vice President Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue (pictured) announced that the government would order the ‘immediate suspension of all civil servants who have had sexual relations in the ministries’ offices’

Social media is abuzz with speculation that more videos involving other people, both male and female, may be released in the next few days.

It comes after at least a dozen MPs, their staff and political journalists were hit by a sinister cyber honeytrap scandal in April.

Parliamentary authorities were under pressure to investigate after a string of Westminster figures – including a sitting minister – were sent flirtatious messages and nude photos.

Victims expressed concern that the masterminds behind the ‘spear phishing’ attacks appeared to have intimate knowledge of their lives and movements, and there are fears that a foreign state may be involved.

Former Conservative leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith described the attacks – revealed by the political news website Politico – as an ‘assault on parliamentary democracy’ and demanded authorities step up security.