A jury in a federal court in New York announced the verdict.

Chang was accused of taking bribes to secretly get his African country to make large loans to state-controlled companies for tuna fishing vessels and other maritime projects. The loans were looted through bribes and kickbacks, prosecutors said, and Mozambique ended up with $2 billion in “hidden debt,” triggering a financial crisis.

“Today’s verdict is an inspiring victory for justice and the people of Mozambique, who were betrayed by the defendant, a corrupt, high-ranking government official whose greed and self-interest sold out one of the poorest countries in the world,” Brooklyn-based U.S. Attorney Breon Peace said in a statement.

Letters seeking comment were sent to Chang’s lawyers and to Mozambique’s embassy in Washington. Chang was his country’s top financial official from 2005 to 2015.

Chang had pleaded not guilty to the U.S. conspiracy charge. His lawyers said he acted in the interests of his government when he signed pledges that Mozambique would repay the loans and there was no evidence of any financial consideration for him.

No sentencing date has been set for Chang, 48. The charges carry a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison, although sentences in each case can vary depending on the defendant’s criminal history and other factors.

Between 2013 and 2016, three companies controlled by the Mozambican government quietly borrowed $2 billion from major foreign banks. Chang signed guarantees that the government would repay the loans – important assurances for lenders who would otherwise likely have shied away from the brand-new companies.

The proceeds were to be used to finance a tuna fleet, a shipyard, and coast guard vessels and radar systems to protect the natural gas fields off the Indian Ocean coast.

But bankers and government officials plundered the borrowed money to line their own pockets, US prosecutors said.

“The evidence in this case shows that this is an international fraud, money laundering and bribery scheme of epic proportions,” and Chang “chose to participate in it,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Genny Ngai said in her closing argument to the jury on Monday.

Prosecutors accuse Chang of accepting bribes totaling seven million dollars, which were transferred via US banks to the European accounts of an accomplice.

Chang’s defense argued there was no evidence that he was actually promised a penny or even received it.

The only agreement Chang made “was the lawful one to borrow money from banks to enable his country to carry out these public infrastructure works,” defense attorney Adam Ford said in his closing argument on Monday.

Companies were unable to repay their loans, leaving Mozambique in debt to the tune of $2 billion, which at the time was equivalent to about 12 percent of the country’s gross domestic product. A country that had been ranked among the world’s 10 fastest-growing economies by the World Bank for two decades suddenly found itself in financial difficulties.

Growth stagnated, inflation soared, the currency depreciated, international investment and aid fell sharply, and the government cut services. Nearly two million Mozambicans were pushed into poverty, according to a 2021 report by the Chr. Michelsen Institute, a development research institute in Norway.

The loans were sold to investors, including through so-called “tuna bonds.” Some of them managed money for pension and retirement funds, prosecutors said.

Investors in the United States and elsewhere have suffered “significant losses,” Nicole M. Argentieri, assistant attorney general and head of the Justice Department’s criminal division, said in a statement after the verdict.

The Mozambican government has reached out-of-court agreements with creditors to pay off part of the debt. At least ten people have been sentenced to prison in Mozambican courts as a result of the scandal, including Ndambi Guebuza, the son of former Mozambican President Armando Guebuza.

Chang was arrested at Johannesburg’s main international airport in late 2018, shortly before U.S. charges against him and several others became public. After years of fighting extradition from South Africa, Chang was brought to the U.S. last year.

Two British bankers pleaded guilty in the US case, but a jury acquitted another defendant, a Lebanese shipbuilding manager, in 2019. Three other defendants, a Lebanese and two Mozambicans, are not in US custody.

In 2021, then-banking giant Credit Suisse agreed to pay British and US authorities at least $475 million for its role in the Mozambique loans. The bank has since been taken over by former rival UBS.