Malam Bacai Sanha Jr, son of a former president of Guinea-Bissau, was sentenced to more than six years in prison in the United States for his involvement in international heroin trafficking, the US Department of Justice announced on Tuesday in a press release.
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“Malam Bacai Sanha Jr. was no ordinary international drug trafficker,” said Douglas Williams, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Houston, Texas, field office. “He is the son of the former president of Guinea-Bissau and was trafficking drugs for a very specific reason: to finance a coup.”
According to American justice, this 52-year-old man organized heroin trafficking and its importation from Europe to the United States in order to finance a coup d’état in Guinea-Bissau aimed at installing him as president of this small West African countries.
He was arrested with an associate upon arrival in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania’s economic capital, in July 2022, and both were extradited to the United States shortly after. In September 2023, Malam Bacai Sanha Jr. pleaded guilty to “conspiracy to distribute a controlled substance for the purpose of illegal importation,” according to Tuesday’s release, which specifies the sentence of 80 months in prison.
His father, Malam Bacai Sanha, was first installed by a junta as interim leader in 1999 before losing elections the following year. He won the presidency in a 2009 vote, but died in office in January 2012, while receiving treatment in Paris.
His son, known as “Bacaizinho” in Guinea-Bissau, held several positions in the government, including as his father’s economic advisor.
Guinea-Bissau, a Portuguese-speaking country of two million inhabitants, one of the poorest in the world and considered one of the most corrupted by corruption, has suffered from putsch since its independence from Portugal in 1974. in armed or political acts of force.
