No one can stop talking about self -styled knight who distributes cars

Save a tycoon in Zimbabwe, there is a nation that has come in – some delusions, others anxious – in his habit of handing cars along with packs of money to those he considers patriotic – even presents them to those he has never met.

Mercedes-Benzes, Toyota SUVS, Range Rovers are Wicknell Chivayo vehicles for recipients, ranging from music stars, Gospel singers, football players, players and those who are loyal to the ruling Zanu-PF party.

The agreed 44-year-old is partial to white Royals Royce and has a fleet of personalized luxury cars, some of which has also started distributing As he enters the more new modelsS

For years, Sir Winel, as he is called, liked to boast of his wealth via Instagram – he describes the tabloids in detail, but while he is open to how he spends his money, he is less about how he does it, as he encounters control over the source of his wealth in a country where life is daily.

In the last year or around this, his social media account has also been covered by publications about his donations.

They follow a similar model: A photo of a shiny car with balloons tied to her – Sometimes with a great bow on his lid – he is accompanied by a message of congratulations to someone with instructions on where they should collect it, usually from one of the various car dealerships of luxury cars he uses in the capital, Harare.

“Please go and see Victor at Exquisite Motors, your brand new Range Range CV is fully paid and ready to collect,” he told Top musician Jah Prayzah last monthAdding that $ 150,000 (111,000 pounds) in cash also expect it there.

“This is just a small sign of my gratitude for your huge contribution to the music of Zimbabwe and your patriotism in the unification of thousands of people through music, preaching peace, preaching love and preaching unity in every song.”

The volume of his “public gift” has become almost fierce – he even makes humorous memoirs for it. In social media, Zanu-PF accounts offend him in praise, praising their philanthropy.

In private Sir Wicnell – as everyone knows him – he also dumped houses and studied scholarships of followers of his Apostolic Church, the Christian Church of Zion, known for his white clothes and worshiping outdoors.

The soft, a hard businessman has symbolized Zimbabwe’s growing “flexible culture” – the desire to flash someone’s wealth personally and online.

“$ jumping and spending money is just a part of my hobbies,” He wrote in 2013When he first started on Instagram, next to a hotel cart full of his purchases.

This was followed shortly after by quip: “Damn it hurt, it’s a headache at times” and a photo of his huge shoe collection as he tried to decide whether to wear a pair of Luis Vitton or Salvatore Ferragamos.

And so he continues, as the holidays to Dubai, New York, Paris, London and business trips to Johannesburg, Shanghai and New Delhi – and recently publications on his new private jet.

He also likes to show his closeness to power – posting pictures of himself with politicians, by the late Zimbabwe president Robert Mugabe and His heir Emerson Mnangaghawa Recently, other African leaders such as Samia Solution of Tanzania Hassan and William Ruto from KenyaS

“He is very practical to his business deals, a lot on the spot and maintains sections of how each cent is spent,” said a businessman, who had previously coped with Mr Chivayo and asked to remain anonymous before the BBC.

“It is clear that he is politically protected,” he said.

In Cry Havoc, the late The British mercenary and coup Simon MANThe 2011 memoir of his time, closed in the maximum prison in Chikurubi in Zimbabwe, a former British Army officer said his “well-educated” prisoner Wicnell has never warned him not to criticize Zanko-Pf.

The couple was in the same cell block – Man served for four years for their role in an unsuccessful coup attempt in the 2004 Equatorial Guinea and Chivvo for several years for fraud.

“In Africa, an unwanted gift is a massive powerful,” Man quoted him, a seemingly prophetic comment.

Among them, they paid in cigarettes for the services of a prisoner, serving 94 years for armed robbery to make their laundry. Man said Chivyo insisted on directing him as their “housekeeper”.

The two remained friends with Sir Winel Posting a smiling picture of them together In 2013, a year that seems to be a turning point for it.

It was when, as well as to take on Instagram, his company Intratrek Zimbabwe and a Chinese company won an auction to build a solar power plant worth $ 172.8 million.

But later, the project got involved in fraud allegations -court records several years later, they say that Intratrek was paid in advance to start working at the 100 MW factory in Guanda, but failed to deliver as expected Zimbabwe (ZPC).

He, in turn, filed a lawsuit against the ZPC to cancel his contact over the dispute. He won this case and was later justified by all criminal chargesS

Sir Wicnell is a shy media, talks about his hostile to journalists, and politely refused my interview request.

But on a rare trip to a radio show for breakfast last year, he was asked directly how he won his money.

In comparative tones, he said that his main business is government offers, secured by foreign partners in the areas of renewable energy, engineering orders, construction and energy projects. He said he also had a business in Kenya, South Africa and Tanzania.

At the end of last year his company IMC Communications was licensed as a partner for Starlink of Elon Musk Satellite Internet Services Provider.

On Instagram he was very much Larger to his “Midas Touch” “Saying he’s a” cunning “that works hard. He also attributes his success as a “independent millionaire” of his humble origin, raising the satellite city of Harare in Chitungiise, where his family struggles after his father died when he was 10 years old.

He is inclined to repost photos of “going back” to his late teens when, through a family friend, he received a job as a salaries employee at a bus company. “I remember I was the only one at my age with a mobile phone in Chitungis,” He has said about his hardworking ethicsS

A bent Zanu-PF supporter, which earlier attributes its success to the party’s empowerment policy, which was launched in 2013 and forced all companies to overcome the economic control of Black Zimbabweans.

Some see it as a successful example of this policy of indigenization, creating a new class of black businessmen, but others believe that part of its wealth is the result of corruption and murky relations with the authorities – which he strongly denies.

Asked in February about Sir Winell’s predisposition to hand out cars, President Manngavagh has rejected an accusation that the businessman is acting as his frontman. “Where would I get the money to give him? … You can’t bother me about someone who is philanthropic,” he told reporters.

The Corruption Commission in Zimbabwe (ZACC) Start an inquiry Last year, after the South African investigative non -profit organization Open Secrets, which is said to have received Chivayo winds of millions of dollars as a auctioner for the delivery of election materials to the Zimbabwe election committee (ZEC) in 2023.

The scandal was ballooned when an audio message expired, which is believed to have been talking about the deal, it also seems to have suggested two other businessmen, comforting them that they failed to receive promised refusals, suggesting that many more deals were in the pipeline as “we have them in deputy.”

Fallout was grand. Zec denied any relationship with d -n -chivayo or other menAll who denied the allegations – and one year of ZAK did not charge anyone.

Chivayo said that the audio must have been deeply false, generated with sophisticated technology. He also apologized to the president for any impression that the audio may have created that the first family was corrupt.

But not long after, The two businessmen mentioned in the audio were arrested and charged with misappropriation of about $ 7 million in a separate caseS They deny the allegations of auction for a presidential goat and spent almost a year in prison in anticipation of the trial to begin.

This week, there was more HOO-HA for the alleged expiration of a March document for an alleged $ 500 million contract with the name of Mr Chivayo, named as a director of a company to supply equipment for the treatment of Cancer of the Zimbabwe government for four years.

Outrage is above the fact that if it is true, it does not go through a public trading process. The government and Mr. Chivyo dismissed the allegations, stating that the so-called contract was being advertised as evidence was not signed.

“For a whole group of opposition dresses to unite and make noise for an unsigned fake document is an inconvenient despair for political importance” D -n dear saidS

The father of two, Not long married again At a complex wedding ceremony with more than 15,000 guests, he often says that he is not interested in becoming a politician.

For him, everything is about money – and he says he is determined to see his “haters”. Posing from his plane recentlyHe wore a giant “B” tracksuit, decorated with his tracksuit, saying, “Note that” B “is the inevitable status of a billionaire who comes to me against all the chances.”

But his close relationships with power, which allowed him to become rich, means that he will always fly near a dispute.