Former Mozambique finance minister pleads not guilty in US federal court over $2 billion scandal

By BOBBY CAINA CALVAN
Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — Mozambique’s former finance minister has pleaded not guilty in U.S. federal court in connection with a $2 billion corruption and money laundering scandal. Manuel Chang is accused by U.S. authorities in New York of defrauding American investors as part of a scheme that threatened to undermine the economy of his home country, one of the world’s poorest countries. Mozambique is a country of 31 million on Africa’s southern coast on the Indian Ocean. Until his extradition to the United States Wednesday, Chang had been held in South Africa after being arrested in Johannesburg in 2018 on a U.S. warrant.