Equatorial Guinea: Balthazar Ebang Engonga Reportedly Released

At the center of a major sex scandal that shook Equatorial Guinea in late November 2024, Balthazar Ebang Engonga, former director of the National Financial Investigation Agency (ANIF), has reportedly been released after nearly two years in detention. The information was disclosed on Wednesday, May 20, 2026, by Equatorial Guinean activist Nsang Christia Esimi Cruz and relayed by several media outlets.

Widely exposed through the circulation of hundreds of compromising videos, estimated at around 400 clips, Balthazar Ebang Engonga had also been convicted in a separate embezzlement case. The Malabo Court sentenced him to eight years in prison alongside five other senior officials prosecuted in the same corruption case.

According to London based activist Nsang Christia Esimi Cruz, the nephew of Equatorial Guinean President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo was quietly released from Black Beach Prison in Malabo.

“Balthazar Ebang Engonga is free. After two years of detention at Black Beach Prison in Malabo, the nephew of the Equatorial Guinean president has been released amid deafening official silence,” she stated, adding that no official information has yet been provided regarding the conditions of his release or the status of the charges against him.

The sex scandal involving Balthazar Ebang Engonga, who is also the son of a senior official within the Economic and Monetary Community of Central Africa, implicated several figures close to power in Equatorial Guinea and sparked widespread controversy both nationally and across the Central African sub region.