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SAO PAULO. – More than $16m (£12m) in cash and luxury watches were seized at an airport in Brazil in the luggage of a delegation accompanying the son of the president of Equatorial Guinea, local media reported.

Teodorin Nguema Obiang (48), vice-president of Equatorial Guinea and son of its longtime president, Teodoro Obiang Nguema, known for his lavish taste, arrived on Friday on a private plane at Viracopos airport near São Paulo as part of an 11-person delegation.

O Estado de São Paulo reported on its website that federal police found $1.5m in cash in one bag and watches worth an estimated $15m in another.

Brazil limits people from entering the country with more than $2,400 in cash.

TV network Globo said Teodorin Obiang was the only member of the delegation who had diplomatic immunity as the group was not on an official mission.

The bags of other delegation members were inspected as Obiang waited outside in a car, it said.

O Estado de São Paulo quoted a diplomatic source from Equatorial Guinea as saying the money was to pay for medical treatment Teodorin Obiang was to undergo in São Paulo.

As for the watches, they were for the “personal use” of the president’s son, and were engraved with his initials, the report said.

Brazil’s foreign ministry told AFP news agency that it was “in permanent coordination with the federal police and the customs service over the case and to decide what measures should be taken”.

Who is Teodorin Nguema Obiang?

Last year, The Economist reported on Teodorin Obiang’s flashy lifestyle in a report titled Instagram playboy is also the vice-president of Equatorial Guinea.

Accused of using public funds to support a lavish lifestyle, Teodorin Obiang was sentenced in France to a three-year suspended sentence in October 2017 for money laundering.

The court ruled his assets in France be seized, including a mansion on Avenue Foch in Paris. He also got a suspended fine of 30 million euro (£27m; $35m).

In the same year Swiss prosecutors seized 11 luxury cars belonging to Teodorin Obiang. They said he had plundered his country’s oil wealth to buy luxuries.

Other countries including the United States, The Netherlands and Switzerland have seized millions of dollars of his property believed to have been acquired with state funds.

Teodorin Obiang handed over $30m worth of properties to US officials including a large villa in Malibu, California, and a dozen luxury cars, but kept his $38 million private jet and Michael Jackson memorabilia.

His 76-metre yacht, $200 million mansion in Paris, $2.8 million Swedish-manufactured vehicle and a $2 million Bugatti Veyron were all seized in Europe.

In 2015, Obiang reportedly paid a samba dance group some $3.5m to adopt an Equatorial Guinea theme during Brazil’s annual carnival.

A spokesperson for the Beija-Flor samba group denied that they had received the money but said it had received “cultural and artistic support”, the UK Guardian reported. – BBC/The Guardian/News agencies