Credit: Wikipedia Commons /  Isabel dos Santos, daughter of former Angola president José Eduardo dos Santos

DIPLOMATIC TIMES  STAFF

The Angolan government of  President Joao Lourenço has ordered the assets and banks account of Isabel dos Santos to be frozen.  Dos Santos, the daughter of former Angola president José Eduardo dos Santos, was crowned the richest woman in Africa. (Forbes reports she’s estimated to have a fortune of $2.2 billion.  Angola is seeking to reclaim $1 billion that Isabel dos Santos and her associates allegedly owe  as part of an anti-corruption drive launched by her father’s successor has targeted the former first family’s assets.  The court was acting in a graft investigation looking at alleged irregularities involving state companies, including the oil giant Sonangol which Isabel dos Santos used to run, and a diamond-marketing firm, Sodiam.   In 2017,  José Eduardo dos Santos’ nearly 40-year grip on power ended with the election of President Lourenco, who made cleaning up past corruption a priority in his new administration of of the oil-rich, but poverty-stricken  Southern African nation. 

“The state through its companies … transferred enormous quantities of foreign currency to companies abroad whose beneficiaries are the defendants, without receiving the agreed return,” the court said in its order, dated December 23, as reported by DW. 

Credit:  Gary Raynaldo   /   Diplomatic Times /   President João Lourenço of south-central African nation  ANGOLA speaks at the Council on Foreign Relations in Manhattan, NY Sep. 23, 2019.

“The Angolan government is undertaking vigorous measures needed to combat and inhibit corruption so that Angola may improve its governance practices within the framework of the governing norms of democratic states and the rule of law. Angola is also working to implement anti-money laundering measures and to recover assets that have been transferred illegally to foreign countries.”

-Angola President João Lourenço   

Isabel dos Santos denies the corruption charges, says they are ‘politically motivated’

The 46-year-old , nicknamed “the princess”, lives abroad, saying she moved from Angola because her life had been threatened. She runs a huge business empire with stakes in companies in Angola and Portugal, where she has shares in cable television firm Nos SGPS – BBC.  The court ordered the freezing of Ms Dos Santos’ Angolan bank accounts and the seizure of her stake in local companies, including telecoms giant Unitel and bank Fomento de Angola (BFA), the state-owned news agency reported.  In a statement, she said she condemned what she described as a “politically motivated attack” against her.

“I discovered that a trial had been held in total secrecy in Angola and the decision taken to issue a freezing order on my assets. There were no lawyers from my side present, nor the directors of my companies. We were only informed about it after the decision had been taken behind our backs. I have spent the last 24 hours trying to give assurances to my staff and all the families affected by this order that we must not give in. I will use all the instruments of Angolan and international law at my disposal to fight this order and ensure the truth comes out.”  

-Statement  Isabel dos Santos ,  reported by  BBC. 

 Autocrat’s daughter dos Santos revealed as owner of £13m  London Mansion

Source:  thetimes.co.uk / Isabel dos Santos, centre, in the French resort of Antibes in 2018 with the singer Nicole Scherzinger and the socialite Paris Hilton, right. She has won permission to demolish a mansion in west London and rebuild it with a swimming pool complex.

Angolan Ex-President’s Son on Trial in Rare Corruption Case

Jose Filomeno de Sousa dos Santos, the son of  former Angola President Jose Eduardo dos Santos.

The son of Angola’s veteran ex-president faced corruption charges before the country’s supreme court in a trial which opened December 2019, state news agency ANGOP said, the most high-profile case yet under the government’s anti-corruption drive, Reuters  reported.  Former head of Angola’s $5 billion sovereign wealth fund Jose Filomeno de Sousa dos Santos – nicknamed “Zenu” – along with three other defendants including the former governor of the country’s central bank, are accused of transferring $500 million from the bank to a Credit Suisse account in London. The charges cite “money laundering, fraud and influence peddling” linked to the funds, which ANGOP said were supposed to be part of a $30 billion strategic investment fund – Reuters.