An official in Equatorial Guinea is investigated for hundreds of sex videos

YAOUNDE, Cameroon — Authorities in Equatorial Guinea on Tuesday announced plans to install surveillance cameras in government offices, the latest in a string of actions taken in response to a scandal involving a government official who allegedly recorded hundreds of sex videos.

Baltasar Ebang Engonga, director of the country's National Financial Investigation Agency, has been suspended and is being investigated, Equatorial Guinea’s Vice President Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue said in a post on X.

Public investigators were searching Engonga’s computer in the course of a probe into alleged corruption and embezzlement of public funds when they found up to 400 sex videos of him and multiple women, some of them wives and relatives of senior government officials, local media reported.

Some of the videos were reported to have leaked and gone viral on social media, prompting shock and outrage from officials.

It was not clear if the sexual activities with the women were consensual or if any of the women had lodged formal complaints against him.

“The authorities want to establish whether the man deliberately used these relationships to spread a possible disease among the population,” Prosecutor General Anatolio Nzang Nguema was quoted as saying. Engonga could face prosecution for endangering public health, he said.

In the wake of the scandal, Mangue said that government offices will soon have surveillance cameras “to eradicate improper and illicit behaviour.” Anyone caught having any form of sexual activity in an office will be sacked, he said.