My late good friend and supremely talented journalist, Barrie Penrose, had the finest of instincts and the most impeccable of sources. That combination ensured he knew where to look, when to do so, and how hard to put the pressure on. And he always knew when it was time to call me. I always enjoyed hearing from him and I was always aware that the topic for discussion could be anything up to and including an issue of international significance. Or at least it would be a quality chat. I was happy in either case.
At the turn of the century, and for a few years beyond, Barrie developed an interest in a mysterious and hugely wealthy Lebanese oil dealer. According to The Sunday Times Rich List in 2010, British citizen Ely Calil was worth an eye-watering £350M. He was extremely private, rarely photographed, yet quite well-known in high-end London circles. He had bought himself Sloane House, an 18th-century listed mansion off Chelsea’s upmarket King’s Road and lived there with his family.
Barrie’s sources directed him towards Mr Calil, and in turn, Barrie engaged me. It was already known that, in 2002, Calil had been arrested over alleged illegal payments in relation to contracts between the French Elf Aquitaine oil company and the Nigerian Government. It came to nothing, and Calil was never charged, yet further questions were emerging fast.
On Barrie’s instruction, my first investigation into this curious gentleman led to confirmation he had rented a luxury flat in London’s Holland Park to Peter Mandelson, the European Commissioner for Trade, former Labour minister, and close friend to Prime Minister Tony Blair. Mandelson took it on after he quit the cabinet in the wake of revelations of an undeclared home loan from a fellow minister. It was a big story for Barrie in 2004, given the links to the oil dealer. But that was only the beginning.
Barrie talked again about Mr Calil. He said he had information that our man was the source of funding for a planned coup in the small, oil-rich West African nation of Equatorial Guinea. And, it was suggested, the son of former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was involved in putting the plan together.
This was startling stuff. The plotters’ goal was to replace the sitting President and Dictator Teodoro Obiang with exiled opposition politician Severo Moto in exchange for a large chunk of cash and juicy rights to the oil. Barrie had been told this funding was linked to Sir Mark Thatcher and a bloke called Simon Mann, a former British Army officer and SAS operative turned adventurous mercenary. But Barrie had only information. He needed evidence.
He connected me with a Paris-based English lawyer who was likewise exploring those with an interest in the planned overthrow. Indeed, the lawyer was acting on behalf of the sitting president of Equatorial Guinea. He asked me to locate and track Severo Moto, known to be residing in Spain. I arranged it. We found him at a secret location, and at the lawyer’s direction, I engaged my Spanish-based colleague, Rick Howatson, to set up surveillance. The lawyer was keen to know when Mr Moto was planning to head homeward, given such a departure might signal the coup was imminent.
Meanwhile, back in London, Barrie instructed me to task my agents in Cape Town, South Africa, with keeping an eye on Sir Mark Thatcher. They established he was living in a substantial home with his family and that he managed his business dealings from the property. And, being typically thorough, they began to gather information on calls he was making from his many phones.
As work continued, a call came in from the south of Spain. It was March 6, 2004. My agent said Moto was on the move and wasn’t just going to the shop. They had tracked him as he was chauffeured to a private airfield, and they watched as he boarded a private jet and took to the sky. They discovered that the flight plan filed by the pilot indicated Moto was en route to an airport near Equatorial Guinea, with a refuelling stop on the way. I passed on the information.
The next day was a big one. March 7, 2004. The plotters were about to launch their coup. And, as with so many coups in my experience, it didn’t work out. Simon Mann and sixty-seven mercenaries touched down in Harare, Zimbabwe, in a Boeing 727 and were promptly arrested. Their plan had been to load it with £100,000 worth of weapons and other military hardware, but local security forces acting on intelligence put paid to that. The men were later charged with violating immigration, firearms, and security laws and with engaging in an attempt to stage a coup d’état. Mann and the others amusingly claimed they had been en-route to the Democratic Republic of Congo to provide security for diamond mines, but it didn’t wash. Mann was found guilty of attempting to buy arms for the plot and sentenced to seven years.
He told later how Calil had recruited him to lead the misadventure. He alleged, too, that Sir Mark Thatcher had been part of the management team. When he was in jail, Mann asked both Calil and Thatcher to help get him out and suggested in writing that a large splodge of wonga would do the trick. However, as he said later, no one came to his aid.
Five months after the collapse of what became known as the Wonga Coup, Sir Mark Thatcher was arrested at his home in Cape Town, South Africa. His house and cars had been up for sale, and he had a plan to resettle his family in America. The tickets had already been bought, the suitcases packed. The police believed he was about to leg it. He was charged with contravening mercenary laws, denied the lot, and was bailed.
One morning, thanks to my diligent old friends at BOSS, a package arrived by courier to my home in Belfast. It was a CD listing Sir Mark Thatcher’s entire itemised billing for all his phone calls for a three-month period around the Wonga Coup. Those bills very much told a story all of their own concerning a man who denied any part in the attempted military intervention. Indeed, Mr Thatcher denied everything right up until January 2005, just before his trial. It was then that he admitted investing in an aircraft without making proper investigations about its intended use. He said he thought it was to help the poor and had no idea it was for use in a coup. As part of a plea bargain, he received a four-year suspended sentence. It seemed that copies of the same telephone records I had received had found their way to his defence team and forced their hand.
Mann served four years in Zimbabwe before he was extradited to Equatorial Guinea. He served fifteen months of a thirty-four-year sentence before he was pardoned by President Obiang.
As for Mr Calil, he passed away in 2018, aged seventy-two. He broke his neck after falling downstairs at his home in London.
An extract from The Sunday Times, January 23, 2005:
Insight: Coup Plotters Wanted a Colony of Their Own
The failed coup attempt involving Sir Mark Thatcher was to have made Equatorial Guinea a private colony run for the benefit of the British plotters, leaked documents reveal… The named conspirator, Thatcher, is son of the former prime minister. Although he claims to have been drawn into the plot inadvertently after agreeing to finance an air ambulance, the documents suggest otherwise.
Ian Withers has been contributing to this magazine since its inception in late 2022. More of his stories can be found here: https://coverthistory.ie/?s=Ian+Withers
Ian was prompted to supply this piece after reading an extract from our ‘Bring Back The Phoenix’ magazine series. The particular Phoenix story is reproduced below:
