Allegedly corrupt Guinean gets into U.S.

WASHINGTON, Nov. 17 (UPI) -- An official from Equatorial Guinea, who holds millions of dollars worth of U.S. property, may be routinely entering the United States illegally, records show.

Teodoro Nguema Obiang, the small country's forest and agriculture minister and son of its president, allegedly visits the United States in violation of a presidential proclamation and federal law prohibiting corrupt foreign officials from obtaining American visas, The New York Times reported Tuesday.

Obiang owns a $35 million estate in Malibu, Calif., a number of luxury cars and boats, and a private jet. Federal law enforcement officials think most of his wealth comes from corruption related to the huge gas and oil lodes found in the mid-1990s off the coast of his country, U.S. Justice Department and Immigration and Customs Enforcement records show.

"Of course it's because of oil," John Bennett, the U.S. ambassador to Equatorial Guinea from 1991 to 1994, said.

Noting that under the same law, officials of Zimbabwe are prohibited from entering the United States, Bennett said both countries are severely repressive, "but if Zimbabwe had Equatorial Guinea's oil, Zimbabwean officials wouldn't still be blocked from the (United States)."

"The fact that someone like Mr. Obiang continues to travel freely here suggests strongly that the State Department is not yet applying the law as vigorously as Congress intended," said Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., who wrote the applicable law he says is meant to keep "corrupt foreign officials plundering the natural resources of their countries for their own use while their people starve" out of the United States.

The measure was inspired, in part, by the accusations of corruption surrounding Obiang's family and his country's government, Leahy's staff said.