The former finance minister of Mozambique, accused of serving to orchestrate a monetary corruption scandal that just about precipitated the collapse of his nation’s financial system and defrauded American traders, was extradited to the United States from South Africa on Wednesday to face prices in Federal District Court.

Manuel Chang, the previous minister, is suspected of signing off on about $2 billion price of loans hid from public view and partaking in a scheme to embezzle tons of of thousands and thousands of {dollars}. He faces prices within the U.S. of conspiracy to commit fraud and cash laundering.

The authorities accuse Mr. Chang and members of the nation’s political elite of luring traders with the promise of growth initiatives within the tuna fishing business and maritime safety in Mozambique, a southern African nation on the Indian Ocean.

About half a billion {dollars} went lacking, with investigators alleging the cash was used to pay bribes and kickbacks to overseas officers and former bankers.

Mr. Chang, who has denied any wrongdoing, was transferred to the custody of United States officers and left South Africa from Lanseria International Airport, north of Johannesburg.

Mr. Chang had been arrested in Johannesburg in 2018 on his method to the United Arab Emirates, and has been in custody since then. Mozambican officers fought to have him extradited again to the nation to face prices there, however civil society organizations pushed to have him despatched to the U.S., arguing that Mr. Chang would have been given preferential therapy from his political allies again house.

South African officers had agreed to ship Mr. Chang again to Mozambique, however a South African court docket overturned the choice and ordered his extradition to the U.S., the place he’s anticipated to be arraigned in federal court docket in Brooklyn.

“We want Mr. Chang to speak in a judiciary where he is not treated as king, he is treated like a normal citizen, which is not the case of Mozambique,” mentioned Adriano Nuvunga, the chair of Fórum de Monitoria do Orçamento, a civil-society group based mostly in Mozambique’s capital, Maputo.

The group filed the court docket challenges that ultimately led to Mr. Chang being transferred to the United States.

The discussion board hopes {that a} trial of Mr. Chang within the United States will lastly assist find the roughly half a billion {dollars} nonetheless unaccounted for, and determine “who gave Chang the orders to sign those illegal bonds,” Mr. Nuvunga added.

Adam Ford, considered one of Mr. Chang’s attorneys, mentioned he would search to have the case dismissed as a result of Mr. Chang’s proper to a speedy trial was violated. Mr. Ford mentioned in a letter despatched in June to the Brooklyn choose overseeing the case that his consumer had been incarcerated in “appalling conditions” in solitary confinement in South Africa.

“These competing requests to extradite Mr. Chang trapped him in a Kafkaesque labyrinth of never-ending administrative and court proceedings that continue to this day,” Mr. Ford wrote.

A superseding indictment filed in 2019 accused Mr. Chang and 5 different males of utilizing the U.S. banking system to conduct fraudulent transactions, together with utilizing mortgage proceeds to pay bribes, and engaging American traders with a “road show” held in New York City. The males hid from the general public and monetary establishments the “near bankruptcy” that firms confronted on account of the loans being diverted, in line with the indictment.

The monetary offers happened whereas the present president, Filipe Nyusi, served as protection minister. Some imagine {that a} trial within the United States may solid a foul mild on the president’s political get together, Frelimo.

Funds for the federal government’s borrowing had been facilitated via Credit Suisse and VTB Capital, a Russian financial institution, from 2013 via 2015, and amounted to about 12 p.c of Mozambique’s gross home product. The loans had been assured by the federal government with out the correct approval from Parliament.

The full scope of the federal government’s borrowing was revealed in 2016, when Mozambique defaulted on its sovereign debt. The financial system plunged into disaster in what grew to become generally known as the “tuna bond” affair and “the hidden debt scandal.”

Last yr, in a trial so giant it was held outdoors the jail underneath a tent, 11 defendants had been convicted in a Mozambican court docket in reference to the scandal, together with the son of a former president.

“The crimes committed had effects that will be felt for generations,” Judge Efigenio Baptista mentioned in handing down the sentences. “The country was blocked off, financial aid to the state was suspended and poverty worsened for thousands of Mozambicans.”

Lynsey Chutel contributed reporting from Johannesburg, and Karen Zraick from New York.