- Teddy Nguema is VP of Equatorial Guinea and son of its authoritarian President
The son of Equatorial Guinea’s dictator could not resist the opportunity to brag about his stay at a ‘$75,000-a-night’ penthouse in New York last month – as 70 per cent of the population languishes in poverty on less than $2 a day.
Teodoro ‘Teddy’ Obiang, who is also the Vice President of Equatorial Guinea, jumped on Instagram to share photos of him dressed in a sky blue suit, gazing out from a 2,500 sq ft roof terrace across the New York skyline – while half the people in his homeland go without safe drinking water.
The 55-year-old – alleged to have embezzled $100mn of his country’s wealth to fund his lifestyle – was staying in The Mark Penthouse, a 10,000 sq ft suite featuring five bedrooms, six bathrooms, two powder rooms and two wet bars.
The hotel helpfully notes that the living room can even be converted into a full-sized Grand Ballroom if needed. It’s the little things.
But Obiang, son of oil-rich 81-year-old dictator Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, appeared to have other matters on his mind. He was in New York, after all, to join with world leaders at the UN General Assembly as he asked for more aid for Africa.
Flying in by private jet, he told the assembly on September 21: ‘Africa deserves the priority attention of support initiatives and development financing.’
But in the comments of his Instagram posts, car collector and extreme sports enthusiast Obiang was met with outcry from users calling for his return home as people suffer in dire poverty. The Vice President finds himself at the centre of scandals involving torture, corruption and the alleged squandering of $100mn of his country’s wealth.
As part of the latest scandal, MailOnline looks into the lavish lifestyle of Teodoro Nguema Obiang.

While staying in New York, he addressed the UN General Assembly, asking for more aid

Teddy Nguema took to Instagram to show off his stay in the opulent suite in New York

Obiang posed for photos at The Mark Penthouse, a $75k-a-night suite in New York
Teodoro Nguema has lived a extravagant life. His oil-rich father, Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, was listed as one of the weakthiest heads of state in the world in 2006, worth an estimated $600mn. With this, he paid for his son to have the best start at the prestigious École des Roches private school in Normandy.
Obiang went on to study English at Pepperdine University in California, aged, 23, where he lived at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel (and rented a second house in Malibu). As a student, he ‘rarely attended class’, according to the former director of his English skills class. When he did, he arrived by limousine with full entourage in tow.
Alisa Wax, who once ran the Working to Achieve Vital English Skills class, told the Pepperdine University Graphic that Obiang had a reputation as a ‘phantom student’, notoriously difficult to locate. The university reportedly also ‘frequently received rowdiness and damage complaints from hotels and limousine services’ during his time on the course.
At one point, a fire is supposed to have broken out at a house Obiang rented in Malibu, according to the former US ambassador to Equatorial Guinea.
In the end, Obiang was ‘cut loose’ from his English classes and chose to drop out after just five months. Seven years later, in 1998, he landed on his feet when his father appointed him Forestry Minister on a modest salary of $82,000.
Equatorial Guinea – once a key player in cocoa exports – has never fully recovered its agricultural sector. Oil remains top of the agenda, exploited since Obiang Sr took power by force in a 1979 coup. But Forestry Minister was a job – and one that apparently helped Jr afford a $35mn 14,000 sq ft estate in Malibu with a swimming pool, tennis courts and a four-hole golf course.
Mr Obiang was later ordered to pay his former housekeeper, Lily Panayotti, roughly $62,000 in unpaid wages for looking after the house – including ‘cleaning and polishing the Property’s enormous collection of silver and crystal’.
He did reportedly find the means to acquire a Bugatti Veyron 16.4, with an estimated value of £925,000, and a Maserati MC12, worth about £670,000. Bild noted that between 2004 and 2006, Obiang spent 41.5 million euros on his lifestyle – more than the country’s entire education budget for 2005 (est. 41 million euros).
Obiang’s father performed outstandingly well in the November 2009 presidential election, winning 95.4 per cent of the vote – a contest ‘widely regarded to have been rigged’, according to Freedom House. The re-election saw Obiang made Equatorial Guinea’s envoy to UNESCO in 2011 – a decision criticised by rights groups worldwide.
But the climb to the top was not without its challenges. In 2011, the US Justice Department alleged that he had spent $100mn of Equatorial Guinea’s money on luxuries including a private jet, a Malibu mansion and a trove of Michael Jackson memorabilia – including a $275,000 crystal-studded glove, which he bought after the Jackson’s ‘Bad’ tour.
Earlier that year, Global Witness had reported that he had been planning to build a $380mn superyacht, noting it would cost nearly three times more than his country spends annually on health education programmes combined.
They noted that it would have taken him ‘some 4,600 years to pay for Project Zen [the yacht] on his reported official salary’.
Responding to corruption allegations, he said: ‘I’ve been very lucky in business […] and I like to live well.’
The Department of Justice filing claims Obiang derived the assets from ‘the misappropriation, theft, or embezzlement of public funds by or for the benefit of a public official.’

Teddy regularly shares pictures of his lavish lifestyle on Instagram with 156,000 followers

Teddy Obiang was forced to sell off part of his extensive vehicle collection as part of a Swiss money-laundering probe in 2019

Obiang, 55, was made Forestry Minister in 1998 before taking the number 2 spot. Pictured: Obiang wearing camouflage military gear on a jet, shared on Instagram
In 2016, Obiang’s father judged it was time for his son to move up in the world of politics. Appointing his son Vice President of the Republic, in charge of defence and security, in 2016, he said: ‘Teodorin has politics in his blood, he is gifted, it would not be fair if he is not rewarded.’
Obiang moved on from the position of Forestry Minister – a role that remains vacant. But a year later, a French court found him guilty of having plundered the Equatorial Guinea’s assets for personal gain while in the job.
A Paris judge found that Nguema had used his position to siphon payments from timber firms who were exporting from Equatorial Guinea. Prosecutors said his company, Somagui Forestal, was ‘an empty shell used solely to channel public money’. Mr Obiang denied the charges.
Investigators raided his six-storey 107 million-euro Paris mansion – which has its own disco – and trucks arrived to haul away a collection of Bugattis, Ferraris and Rolls Royces, along with other cars as evidence.
In September 2019, 25 of Obiang’s supercars were auctioned off as part of a Swiss money-laundering probe, fetching nearly 27 million Swiss francs (£22.25mn at the time).
A white 2014 Lamborghini Veneno Roadster sold for 8.28mn francs including commission – one of only nine built and introduced for the 50th anniversary of Lamborghini.
A 2011 Aston Martin One-77 Coupe was also up for grabs, as well as a 2015 Koenigsegg One-1.
An armoured – and ‘in need of repair’ – Rolls Royce Silver Spur sold for 86,250 francs, described by James Knight, group chairman of Bonhams Motoring Department, as being ‘perfect for someone who doesn’t have any friends or has enemies’.
Geneva prosecutors said that they had closed an inquiry into Obiang for money laundering and misappropriation of public assets with the arrangement to sell the cars to fund social programmes in west African state.
In 2020, Obiang was convicted for embezzlement by a French court. Both he and his father have denied the allegations. Obiang was fined 30 million euros (around £25.2mn at the time) and handed a three-year suspended sentence.
‘This verdict against Teodorin Obiang is further proof that rampant government corruption in Equatorial Guinea has robbed its people of their country’s oil wealth,’ said Sarah Saadoun, business and human rights researcher at Human Rights Watch.
‘The French government should repatriate the money ensuring it goes to key services where it should have been spent.’
Obiang has continued to be challenged worldwide on his spending and alleged abuses of power. In 2021, the UK slapped him with sanctions over the purchases including Michael Jackson’s glove.
Earlier this year, South African officials also seized a superyacht and two homes owned by the VP after a local businessman won a lawsuit against Obiang for unlawful arrest and torture.
Daniel Janse van Rensburg claimed he was unlawfully held in Equatorial Guinea for about 500 days after a business deal went wrong. He published a book in September last year about the experience, alleging he was held in ‘one of the world’s most feared prisons, notorious for its brutality and inhumane conditions’ in 2013.
Mr van Rensburg says he had his passport confiscated and was held prisoner without trial in the island’s ‘Guantanamo’ cells, where he witnessed torture.

A selection of super cars belonging to Teddy seized by Swiss authorities to be auctioned off

A Lamborghini Veneno Roadster (2014) sport car, part of some 25 luxury cars owned by Teodoro Obiang, before an auction near Geneva, Switzerland, Sunday, September 29, 2019

Nguema shares regular updates of his lavish lifestyle with his 156,000 followers on Instagram

Teddy, the Vice President of Equatorial Guinea, sits on a jeep in a photo shared on Instagram
French authorities estimated that Obiang siphoned nearly $115 million from Equatorial Guinea as agriculture minister between 2004 and 2011.
Despite being the third richest country in Africa – with a per capita income of $8,462 reported earlier this year – more than 70 per cent of the 680,000 who live in Equatorial Guinea live in poverty. Not by coincidence, the country is also the third largest oil producer on the continent, exploited since the discovery of large reserves in 1996.
Oil has given Obiang’s father – Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo – a grip on power since August 3, 1979. He is the country’s second president, a position he has held for 44 years in spite of more than a dozen attempted coups – including one in 2004 financed by Mark Thatcher, the son of the former British Prime Minister.
Obiang Sr has maintained power by ruling with an iron fist. Human rights groups warn that authorities in Equatorial Guinea continue to abuse the population, conducting arbitrary arrests and detentions, torture and enforced disappearances. Amnesty reports that undocumented migrants are deported without due process, LGBT people continue to face discrimination, and impunity for sexual violence remains.
Last year, the President clamped down on an ‘alleged increase in crime’ with a national ‘Cleaning Operation’, arresting more than 400 young men within one week in May – and reportedly thousands within a few months – ostensibly to counter gang crime. Many were released due to lack of evidence – but at least four died in prison.
While oil and gas exports provide a strong foundation for growth in Equatorial Guinea, little trickles down to the struggling population. Obiang Sr has maintained since the discovery of fossil fuels that he would prioritise health services and education, but the state has mustered barely two and three per cent of its annual budget on each, respectively.
Spending instead heads towards large infrastructure projects, ensuring the elites can enjoy swanky new hospitals Malabo and Bata – while more than half the population lacks access to safe drinking water.
Likewise, while Obiang Jr has been able to enjoy stays in prestigious schools in Europe and North America, 42 per cent of the population of his country was unenrolled in school in 2012 – the seventh worst record in the world in a list topped mostly by countries embroiled in war.

In 2011, the DoJ alleged that Obiang had spent $100mn of Equatorial Guinea’s money on luxuries including a private jet, a Malibu mansion and a trove of Michael Jackson memorabilia

Obiang has never been shy about showing off his lavish lifestyle online

More than half Equatorial Guinea’s population lacks access to safe drinking water. Pictured: Vice President Teddy Nguema Obiang enjoys water jetpacking, shared on social media

Equatorial Guinea is a small nation in Central Africa, with its capital Malabo separated from the mainland, on Bioko. The country is building a new capital, Ciudad de la Paz, on the continent
Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue appeared in front of the UN General Assembly in September to ask for aid for Africa as he stayed in a $75,000-a-night hotel in New York.
For three decades this year, however, Equatorial Guinea has been cut off from World Bank and IMF aid programmes due to corruption and mismanagement.
Concluding a visit to the country this year, the IMF judged that despite some recent growth, Equatorial Guinea would likely decline over time with the ‘shrinking role of the hydrocarbon sector’.
The declining importance of oil will no doubt affect the Obiang grip on power. But for hundreds of thousands of people, it will be a matter of life and death.
#Dictator039s #son #boasts #staying #75000anight #York #hotel #suite #aid #Equatorial #Guinea039s #vice #president #collects #sports #cars #children #starve #brags #luxury #life