“This is nothing. You should see the guns they have inside,” he said after sweet-talking his way past a friendly guard with a big rifle — two colleagues. I was talking with the president of a private security company in the courtyard of the Ustu Country Club.
The club is located in Mlambanyatsi, a quiet village surrounded by timbered hills, about 30 minutes’ drive south of Eswatini’s capital, Mbabane. As part of a reporting trip for what would become Swazi Secrets, we followed several clues that pointed to security companies’ involvement in suppressing anti-government protests in this small southern African country. was visiting. Based on leaked documents from local financial regulators obtained by Decentralized Confidential Denial, the ICIJ-led investigation brings together 38 journalists from 11 countries and finds that Africa’s last absolute monarchy is illegal both regionally and globally. clarified the role played in the act. economy.
This security company was rumored to be operating as a secret mercenary organization to suppress the democracy movement that has swept the country since 2021. The leaked documents did not contain enough evidence to establish exactly what the company’s employees were doing. However, the leak revealed that the company that owned the country club and hired the security company (a company founded by this country’s finance minister) was apparently using sensitive surveillance equipment to support the nation. It was said that they were procuring it.
ICIJ journalist Mika Reddy visited Eswatini multiple times during her investigation into Swazi secrets. Image: Yeshiel Panchia / ICIJ
At this point, we were making steady progress in reviewing the more than 890,000 leaked documents. On successive reporting trips, I visited large parts of western and central Eswatini, interviewing sources, soliciting information from reluctant officials, and visiting numerous locations that had surfaced in the leaks, including the Usuthu Country Club. traced the address.
At first glance, most of the places I visited seemed completely unremarkable and harmless. Some were even boringly comfortable, like country clubs and rural churches just off the main highway that bisected the country.
There is little that distinguishes Zion’s All Nations Church of Christ from the countless other churches that have proliferated across the country in recent years. Outside the church’s main hall, a building resembling an industrial warehouse, we met “Archbishop” Bheki Lukele.
Lukele is a stocky, affable man with an eerily gaping smile. But his overly protective bodyguard was strange to him, who is supposedly a half-hearted man of God. Perhaps, at the time, I thought they were a sign of someone wanting to avoid scrutiny of their earthly activities.
On the left, in a field beside the highway, stands the All Peoples Church of Christ building. Yes, the people in the congregation during worship. Image: Yeshiel Panchia / ICIJ
Inside the cavernous hall, churchgoers sang, chanted in tongues and swayed as one particularly irritated bodyguard tried to shoo an ICIJ photographer away. Perhaps the members had no idea that this humble church and its leaders were a conduit for millions of dollars. That’s why we were there, to see firsthand the site that Swazi authorities had flagged as a key node in a complex transaction involving politically connected figures in South Africa across the border with Eswatini. It was. Authorities deemed the transaction suspicious and potentially illegal.
From the church, we drove north about 90 miles in a four-wheel-drive vehicle over sometimes rugged terrain to the remote border town of Brembu. Bulembu is a former asbestos mining town that has become largely deserted as the demand for the material has drastically reduced. This picturesque town had undergone a minor revival in recent years as the site of a church and an orphanage.
We came to Bulembu to find a new bank opening in a town with a strangely almost non-existent economy. Again, what we saw was unremarkable. It was a modest, newly painted building. Inside was a brand new steel waiting room bench and counter. Although it looked like an ordinary bank at first glance, the story behind it was full of intrigue.
The bank is in limbo amid an ongoing battle between its shadowy Canadian founders and Swazi authorities, who are concerned about a lack of transparency over the bank’s ownership and want answers about the source of its funding. there were. Our undercover Swazi investigation uncovered political interests behind the bank, questionable financial flows and the opaque role of controversial and litigated Canadian real estate developer John Asfar.
A company that reviewed Farmers Bank’s license application said Farmers Bank downplayed Mr. Asfar’s role and failed to provide required personal financial records. He and his brother Alexandre, who officially owned the bank, were embroiled in endless litigation with Canadian tax authorities and other family members over issues such as their father’s inheritance. His company, Travelers Inn, had also filed for bankruptcy in Canada.
When we sent him questions about this article, Asfar responded with rambling and conspiratorial letters and messages in which he accused ICIJ of “financial terrorism” and threatened to sue. In April, shortly after publication, local media reported that Mr. Asfar had attempted to physically gain control of the bank with the help of armed guards after he was removed from the board. It was like “a scene from a movie,” wrote the Swaziland Times.
Bulembu grew up around what was once one of the world’s largest asbestos mines, but most of its residents left after the mine closed in 2001. Image: Yeshiel Panchia / ICIJ
At the beginning of the report, we visited another seemingly nondescript property in central Eswatini, outside the commercial center of Manzini town. For those who don’t know the background, there wasn’t much to see. The central administration building was surrounded by a grid of wide open roads and vacant lots. It was supposed to be a “special economic zone” that would attract investors with various incentives without complicated procedures or regulations. Special economic zones, the king’s pet project, promised to turn Eswatini into the next Dubai. Rather, it was a white elephant with huge financial loopholes. This in turn has allowed underground international gold traders and money launderers to move millions of dollars in what government authorities suspect is illegal trade.
To make matters worse, the area demarcated for this project was once inhabited by ordinary Swazi citizens. They grew up there, raised animals, grew crops, and buried their families on the land. When the government decided to embark on its poor plan, it forcibly evicted the residents of the area, leaving many homeless.
Our story about SEZs touched on the dark underbelly of a society where power is exercised ruthlessly, arbitrarily and without accountability.
When we started working on the Swazi Secret Project, Eswatini was still on edge, reeling from the pro-democracy movement that had spread in 2021. Dozens of people died as a result of the state’s heavy-handed response. In 2023, Thulani Maseko, a prominent human rights lawyer and regime critic, was assassinated in her home in front of her family. Maseko was a member of the People’s United Democratic Movement. The movement is a banned organization in countries where political parties are illegal.
At a funeral in Lufreko, near Manzini, in January 2023, Tulani Maseko, a political activist and fierce critic of the authorities, was shot through the window of his home by unknown assailants, and his coffin bearers were forced to carry the coffin. carry. Image: AFP (via Getty Images)
In the Swazi secret leak, the boyish-looking 56-year-old king, Mswati III, was nowhere to be found at the same time. Although his name was rarely mentioned, his fingerprints were everywhere. Through his agents and associates, he was a shadow in the background of every story.
He and his extended family rule a small, impoverished country of just 1.2 million people, while traveling the country in a fleet of ultra-luxury cars, flaunting watches worth millions, and leading a superpower. He flies around the world in a private jet worthy of a man. .
The country’s national motto is “Siin Kaba”, literally “We are the fortress”. And so far, Africa’s last bastion of absolute monarchy has resisted pressures for change from within and without. Despite all the controversy, excesses and violence, and despite growing anti-monarchy sentiment at home, the king enjoys a level of international respect that is unusual for Eswatini. He did so by presenting himself as the smiling, soft-spoken, urbane face of a monarchy that was in touch with its subjects and had their best interests at heart. The monarchy seeks to convey to the world that it embodies the modern aspirations and traditional values of its people.
King Mswati III (centre) arrives for the annual “Umhlanga” or reed dance ceremony in 2018. Image: Yeshiel Panchia
Similarly, Mswati’s governing laws project a friendly and open image externally, especially towards foreigners. Eswatini welcomes tourists to its game park and investors to its business-friendly environment. Unlike other dictatorships, there are no permanent soldiers or police. As journalists we had to be careful, but we were not followed around for photos or treated with any more suspicion than one would expect from any official. Some of our colleagues were tailed by security guards, but our only encounter with law enforcement was an unofficial $2.50 speeding “fine” paid by a smiling police officer. It was just that.
But when we dug below the surface and started talking to ordinary people, such as those who were evicted from areas where special economic zones are now located, a completely different picture emerged. When the conversation turned to politics, many spoke in hushed tones, but one thing quickly became clear. It’s that people are angry. But oppression and its threat are never far from their thoughts.
Like all the seemingly mundane places we have visited, in Eswatini, banality and charm often mask a darker side. The idyllic scenery, smiling citizens, and amiable king belie the political dark arts and coercion that underpin the monarchy. The cozy little country club, church, bank, and vacant lot were all completely unremarkable, but they also revealed little about the dark money behind them.
