A court in Equatorial Guinea has sentenced senior government official Baltasar Ebang Engonga to eight years in prison for embezzlement, months after he made global headlines when leaked sex tapes involving him and the wives of other officials surfaced online.
Hilario Mitogo, press director of the Supreme Court, said the Bioko provincial tribunal found Engonga guilty of diverting hundreds of thousands of dollars in public funds earmarked for official travel expenses.
He was also fined $220,000.
Engonga, who served as head of the national financial investigation agency, was tried alongside five other top officials accused of misappropriating state resources in the oil-rich Central African nation.
His notoriety spread in November when explicit videos—some allegedly recorded inside his finance ministry office—went viral while he was in detention awaiting trial.
The scandal triggered widespread ridicule, spawning parodies, comic songs, dances and memes, including a spoof virility drug dubbed Balthazariem.
Despite the uproar, the court’s ruling focused strictly on financial crimes, handing down the prison term and financial penalty.
