UNDER President Emmerson Mnangagwa, openly confessed criminal millionaires have strategically aligned themselves with the highest office in the land.
They are paraded as Zimbabwe’s self-made success stories, our “homegrown” black millionaires.
And yet, any critical voice questioning the source of their wealth is swiftly dismissed as envious, unpatriotic or simply “bitter.”
But let’s be honest — their riches are not the fruits of enterprise or innovation.
They are the spoils of criminality.
A billion-rand scandal
The evidence is not in doubt.
South Africa’s Financial Intelligence Centre reported to Zimbabwe’s Reserve Bank the details of a corrupt deal involving Wicknell Chivayo, who pocketed over one billion rand meant for election materials.
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This was not just a scandal. It was daylight robbery — and the Zimbabwean taxpayer is the one bleeding.
Time and again, the President boasts about those making money under his rule.
But a closer look reveals a disturbing truth: their wealth is of illicit origin.
It is built on foundations of drug trafficking, corruption, fraud, money laundering, illegal mining, and smuggling.
Gold mafia, diplomatic couriers and proxy empires
We all saw it.
The Gold Mafia documentary laid bare the multi-billion-dollar gold smuggling empire flourishing under official protection.
It exposed how State actors, relatives of top officials and “businessmen” use diplomatic immunity, offshore accounts and complex shell company networks to move stolen wealth across borders.
The Munhumutapa Sovereign Wealth Fund, pitched as a generational asset, is nothing more than a cleverly disguised looting vehicle.
There is no transparency in public procurement.
Parliament is locked out of oversight.
The public has no clue who supplies what or at what cost — and that is by design.
Public display of impunity
We have watched Chivayo filming himself aboard private jets, handling stacks of cash, bragging about his immunity from search or arrest.
He’s not wrong. He is untouchable — a fact he flaunts with impunity.
Criminal wealth is laundered through layering, integrated into the formal economy and hidden behind “legitimate” businesses.
It is diversified into real estate, luxury vehicles, fine art, jewellery and crypto assets — not for glamour, but for concealment and preservation. None of this wealth is taxed.
That alone is enough to cripple our economy, already gasping under the weight of inflation and underdevelopment.
A system captured
This ecosystem of criminal wealth operates with full protection from a corrupt system.
The police, the anti-corruption commission, the courts, even some churches — all have been captured or silenced. What chance does justice have when every layer of the system serves the same elite interests?
The social cost is devastating. Inequality is growing. Fair competition has vanished.
The youth see crime as the only viable path to success. A nation cannot survive on such values.
Criminal wealth buys power
Criminal wealth is not passive — it is weaponised.
It buys MPs, judges, political parties and entire State institutions.
It has hijacked Parliament, captured the opposition, and ensured that those who challenge the status quo are sidelined, silenced or sabotaged.
There are no real opposition parties left — only factions within Zanu PF fighting to wrest control from a Karanga-led criminal cartel bankrolled by stolen billions.
This is not empowerment
Let us be absolutely clear: criminal wealth is not indigenisation.
It is not black empowerment. It is not patriotic enterprise.
It is State-sponsored theft, paraded as progress.
To question it is not to be jealous. It is to be conscious.
To expose it is not to be bitter — it is to be brave.
And to confront it is not to hate Zimbabwe — it is to love it enough to fight for its future.
