Eleven fraud suspects walk free, unionist points to justice minister

Eleven men walked free from two of Madagascar’s prisons, and the question of who let them out has now reached the highest levels of the country’s justice establishment.

The eleven, all Chinese nationals suspected of involvement in a large-scale fraud operation, had been held at the Antanimora prison (five of them) and at Avaradrano (six). They are now at liberty. According to the information available, four have already left the island, while the remaining seven are still believed to be in Madagascar and are being actively tracked by the security forces.

Suspicion fell quickly on the director of the Avaradrano prison, who also serves as secretary general of the Syndicat du personnel de l’Administration pénitentiaire de Madagascar. His signature appears on the documents authorising the detainees’ release. The man, now himself on the run, has denied any wrongdoing in a video circulated about the affair. He claims he acted on instructions from a member of the government in order to allow the detainees out. “He affirms having acted on the instructions of the member of the government to permit the release of the detainees. Serious accusations which now place the question of the origin of the orders at the centre of this affair,” writes Madagascar-Tribune.

That accusation was firmly rejected by the Minister of Justice, Fanirisoa Ernaivo. Speaking at a press conference held at the airport on her return from Mauritius, she said: “I categorically reject these defamatory accusations, especially as I did everything possible to have this group of Chinese arrested and sanctioned. I would not allow myself to act lightly in an affair involving international agreements,” as reported by L’Express de Madagascar.

For the seven fugitives still at large, the minister offered a striking explanation for their refusal to leave. “It should be noted that these Chinese nationals refuse to return to China. They are very afraid of going home because the sentences awaiting them there are far harsher than those they are serving in Madagascar,” she said, according to 2424.mg. Four of the eleven have already left the country; the forces of order are trying to find the others, who are thought to remain on the island.

The affair traces back to an operation that began far from Madagascar’s prison walls. The case was revealed on 9 August 2026 at a press conference given by the federal prosecutor for Washington, Jeanine Pirro. After reviewing the dismantling of an online commerce platform in Asia, she disclosed the operation that had just taken place in Madagascar. Thirteen scam factories were searched. Some 3,200 computers were seized and 500 people were apprehended. It was during these sweeps that 50 Chinese nationals were arrested. “We have opened our own investigation into at least 30 Chinese leaders of these centres who, interestingly, were quickly repatriated to China by the Chinese government,” the prosecutor noted, according to the AFP.

The escape of the eleven men, suspected of involvement in this FBI investigation, risks causing a stir within the American justice system. For Madagascar, it is a regrettable incident, and one that lands on a country still carrying the memory of the involvement of Malagasy officials in the registration file of the Boeing 777 aircraft delivered to Iran. The question that now dominates the case, as Madagascar-Tribune observed, is where the orders for the release actually came from: the word of a fugitive prison director against the categorical denial of a justice minister, with seven men still in hiding and four already gone.