Six months after having been arrested and incarcerated, formal charges relating to alleged financial and corruption-related offences have been laid against LAM - Linhas Aéreas de Moçambique's former director general, João Carlos Pó Jorge, who is being held along with two other former executives.
According to Mozambique's state-owned news agency, Agência de Informação de Moçambique (AIM), citing the country's Attorney General's Office, Pó Jorge has been formally charged on 31 alleged counts including mismanagement, embezzlement, fraud, and abuse of office.
Pó Jorge, former operations director Hilário Tembe, and former head of treasury Eugénio Mulungo were arrested on February 26, 2026, in an operation conducted by the anti-corruption authority (Gabinete Central de Combate à Corrupção - GCCC). They have been in pre-trial detention for the past six months.
On August 18, the criminal investigation section of the Maputo City Judicial Court rejected their requests for provisional release, the newspaper Jornal Domingo reported.
AIM reports that prosecutors allege the three colluded in fraudulent catering payments, irregular supplier contracts, and unauthorised aircraft transactions that resulted in substantial financial losses.
The charges against Pó Jorge include eight counts of financial involvement in business dealings, 12 of mismanagement causing loss, eight of embezzlement, two of fraud, and one of abuse of office.
According to prosecutors, the alleged offences include the sale of shares in LAM's travel agency MexTur to a debtor previously barred by the International Air Transport Association (IATA), causing losses of more than MZN44.2 million meticais (USD692,000).
Pó Jorge is also accused of approving payments without board authorisation, bypassing procurement rules, authorising unauthorised aircraft maintenance in Nairobi costing USD890,610, selling aircraft for undervalued amounts, and diverting USD4 million in Boeing funds to settle payments owed to lessor AerCap without shareholder approval.
Preliminary hearing
During the preliminary hearing last week, defence lawyers clashed with prosecutors over procedural issues after the court rejected several defence applications, Jornal Domingo reported.
The court also declined to overturn an earlier ruling maintaining the defendants' detention, although it said procedural objections raised by the defence could be revisited later in the proceedings.
The defence pushed to broaden the evidentiary record, with counsel for Tembe requesting that a 173-page preliminary audit report by the Administrative Court covering LAM's 2021-2024 management accounts be added to the case file.
Pó Jorge, through his legal team, has denied the 31 charges against him. His team has requested further investigative steps, including a review of internal manuals and board minutes to test whether board approval was legally required for certain agreements.
Sale of two E190s
The prosecution alleges that Pó Jorge, who served as LAM’s director general from July 2018 until his removal in February 2024, initiated the sale of two E190s (C9-EMA (msn 19000301) and C9-EMB (msn 19000309)) below their estimated market value and induced LAM's board to approve the transaction. Prosecutors allege that the sale caused LAM losses of USD18.6 million, arguing the jets were sold for USD6.1 million despite an earlier independent valuation of USD24.7 million.
The defence disputes those allegations, requesting evidence of the aircraft's market value and documents relating to a 2015 Council of Ministers decision that it says authorised the sale.
According to documents cited earlier this year by Mozambique's Savana newspaper and MZNews, LAM decided in 2018 to dispose of the two E190s after a lack of shareholder funding left the aircraft grounded in Kenya Airways' maintenance facility at Nairobi Jomo Kenyatta. An initial desktop appraisal by the UK-based International Bureau of Aviation valued the aircraft at USD24.7 million, but after the COVID-19 pandemic delayed the sale, a subsequent physical inspection valued them at USD4.3 million because of their deteriorated condition and engine issues.
The aircraft were ultimately sold to Gibraltar-based brokerage Think Holdings for USD6.1 million after Airlink (South Africa) declined to buy them due to their repair costs.
The defence team argues that the later appraisal more accurately reflected the aircraft's condition and justified the sale price.
2026 audit investigation
In an entirely separate matter, citing "absence of criminal evidence," the GCCC on August 10, 2026, closed its Case No 120/11/P/GCCC/2025, which was investigating alleged widespread procurement irregularities at LAM, according to a report in Políica Moçambica published by the country's civil rights organisation Centro Para Democracia e Direitos Humanos (CDD) on August 23.
The case was opened after an extraordinary internal audit at LAM ordered on February 9, 2026, was completed in late May and assessed by the GCCC in late June 2026, with the CDD calling this timeline an "unusual speed" that raises transparency concerns.
The internal audit revealed that LAM committed USD25 million to acquire two E190s, C9-AMA (msn 19000224) and C9-AMB (msn 19000235) - which entered service in mid-August 2026 - allegedly without formal board resolutions, supervisory approvals, or structured feasibility studies. The aircraft were allegedly purchased via direct award without a public tender, international market consultation, or physical inspection of the engines.
Additionally, LAM acquired three DHC-8-Q400s without independent pre-purchase inspections, which required an estimated USD11.6 million in further investments to become airworthy.
Despite having a grounded fleet, LAM spent more than USD3.1 million per month leasing aircraft under wet lease contracts. The audit also recorded testimonies showing standard governance procedures were bypassed due to government pressure.
The CDD said it had formally requested access to the official archiving decree (despacho de arquivamento) to force a public explanation of why these findings were dismissed without deeper investigation.
