Prophet Shepherd Bushiri has activated his Facebook page which he claimed to have been taken down by hackers.
Bushiri’s Facebook page which has over 4 million followers was deactivated on Wednesday, 5 March 2023. Circumstances leading to the deactivation remained hazy.
However, posts shared on Instagram and Facebook by his wife, Mary Bushiri, alleged that the pages were deactivated by hackers. Some people questioned the claim.
Unlike his Facebook page and personal account, Bushiri’s Instagram account where he has over 1 million followers was not deactivated.
Malawi24 can now confirm that Bushiri’s Facebook page is back online.
Bushiri, whose real name is Chipiliro Gama, is one of the most followed reverends in Africa and regarded by others as controversial.
He uses his social media account for his Enlightened Christian Gathering (ECG) The Jesus Nation church ministries.
Fugitive? Bushiri on the run
Prophet Bushiri is currently fighting extradition to South Africa where he faces charges of alleged fraud and money laundering.
Bushiri is facing these charges together with his wife as an alleged partner-in-crime. The couple escaped to Malawi after jumping bail in November 2020.
South African media alleged that Bushiri was smuggled into Malawi using President Lazarus Chakwera’s private jet. Coincidentally, Bushiri is said to have “vanished” in South Africa on the very day Chakwera was leaving the rainbow nation.
The discovery resulted in Chakwera’s departure for Malawi being significantly delayed for several hours as officers interrogated the President’s aides and turned the presidential jet and its bunker inside out while searching for Bushiri’s possible hideout.
The search proved futile.
Chakwera landed at Kamuzu International Airport more than an hour after midnight. A few hours later, Bushiri announced his arrival in Malawi.
South Africa law enforcement agencies considers Bushiri a “fugitive” and have filed for his extradition to face his charges.
Gold Mafia: Bushiri’s spiritual father implicated
The deactivation of Prophet Shepherd Bushiri’s Facebook page coincidentally occurred a few hours before the release of Episode 3 of the Gold Mafia.
The Gold Mafia is a comprehensive investigation into money laundering by Al Jazeera.
The Gold Mafia investigation alleges that Prophet Uebert Angel is involved in money laundering and illicit gold trade in Zimbabwe.
Prophet Angel is Prophet Bushiri’s “spiritual” father.
In Gold Mafia, Prophet Uebert Angel is caught on camera asking investigative journalists posing as investors to build a tourism city at the Victoria Falls allegedly as the means of concealing proceeds of illicit gold trading and money laundering.
Coincidentally, Prophet Shepherd Bushiri is also building what he has called “Goshen City” in Mangochi. Mangochi is the hub of tourism in Malawi that lies on the Southern tip of Lake Malawi known for its beautiful cichlid fish instead of its ‘small-scale’ gold mining.
Bushiri, who is fondly called Major 1, has previously claimed to own gold and diamond mines in different countries.
Malawi losing billions to gold smuggling
In unrelated news, some members of the Gold Mafia told Al Jazeera that they have shell companies and operational bases in different countries including Malawi.
In September 2020, a few month before Bushiri went on the ‘run’ after ‘escaping’ from law enforcement agents, President Lazarus Chakwera told Parliament that Malawi was “exporting US$85 million (over 110 billion Malawi Kwacha)” to the Middle East every year. The export, mainly through smuggling and other illegal routes, would carter for about a 3rd of the Malawi national budget.
In May 2021, 8 months after his September’s State of National Address (SONA), President Chakwera further revealed that Malawi was losing millions of US dollars to “rampant illegal mining and mineral smuggling” mostly to the Middle East.
The Gold Mafia investigation pins Dubai as the hub of smuggled gold.
Among those who have also been implicated in the Gold Mafia are Simon Rudland who has a business arrangement with Malawi’s Nyasa Manufacturing Company (NMC) through his Gold Leaf Tobacco.
