Equatorial Guinea sex tape scandal: The story behind the Baltasar Ebang Engonga leak

The vice-president, along with his mother, are suspected to be pushing aside anyone who threatens his path to the presidency, including Gabriel Obiang Lima (another son of President Obiang from a different wife), who was oil minister for 10 years and then moved to a secondary government role.

Those in the elite are thought to know things about each other that they would rather was not made public, and videos have been used in the past to humiliate and discredit a political opponent.

There are also frequent accusations of coup plotting, which further fuels paranoia.

But Mr Cruz also alleges that the authorities want to use the scandal as an excuse to crack down on social media, which is how a lot of information about what is really going on in the country gets out.

In July, the authorities temporarily suspended the internet after protests broke out on the island of Annobón.

For him, the fact that a high-ranking official was having sex outside of marriage was not surprising as it was part of the decadent lifestyle of the country’s elite.

The vice-president, who himself has been convicted of corruption in France and has had lavish assets seized in various countries, wants to be seen as the man cracking down on graft and wrong-doing at home.

Last year, for example, he ordered the arrest of his half-brother over allegations he sold a plane owned by the state airline.

But in this case, despite the vice-president’s efforts to stop the spread of the clips, they continue to be viewed.

This week, he tried to appear more resolute calling for the installation of CCTV cameras in government offices “to combat indecent and illicit acts”, the official news agency reported, external.

Saying that the scandal had “denigrated the image of the country” he ordered that any officials found engaging in sex acts at work would be suspended as this was a “flagrant violation of the code of conduct”.

He was not wrong that the story has attracted a lot of outside interest.

Judging by Google’s data, search enquiries that include the country’s name have shot up since the beginning of this week.

On Monday, on X, “Equatorial Guinea” was one of the top trending terms in Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa – surpassing at times interest in the US election.

This has left some activists who have been trying to tell the world about what is really going on in the country frustrated.

“Equatorial Guinea has much bigger problems than this sex scandal,” said Mr Cruz, who works for a rights organisation called GE Nuestra.

“This sex scandal for us is just a symptom of the illness, it’s not the illness itself. It just shows how corrupt the system is.”

Additional reporting by BBC Verify’s Peter Mwai.