Angolan court orders the arrest worth a billion dollars to Isabel dos Santos
The Angolan court has ordered the arrest of “all balances in bank accounts of current deposits held or co-titled” by the daughter of former president of Angola José Eduardo dos Santos
The Angolan Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Public Ministry’s request and ordered the preventive detention of several assets of Angolan businesswoman Isabel dos Santos, worth millions of euros.
In the document, which CNN Portugal had access to, the Angolan court orders the arrest of “all balances on demand deposit bank accounts held or jointly held” by the daughter of former Angolan president José Eduardo dos Santos.
“All balances of bank accounts of demand deposits titled or co-titled (or where he appears as an attorney-in-fact and/or authorized), headquartered in all banking institutions, including time deposit accounts, other financial investments that were subordinated and including title dossiers on behalf of the defendant Isabel dos José dos Santos”, can be read in the document.
Some of the companies are headquartered in countries such as Mozambique, Cape Verde and São Tomé Príncipe. The Supreme Court ordered the freezing of 70% of the holdings of the Mozambican telecommunications company MSTAR in which Isabel dos Santos “is the effective beneficiary”, as well as 100% of the holdings of the companies UNITEL T+ in Cape Verde and UNITEL STP in São Tomé and Príncipe in that the defendant is also an “effective beneficiary”.
Other companies covered by the court order are EMBALVIDRO, in which the court ordered the freezing of 100% of the shareholdings and all bank accounts, 70% of the shareholdings in the company UPSTAR Comunicação and 100% of the shareholdings in the companies UNITEL International Honding and UNITEL International.
In addition to the millions of dollars “that correspond to the value of the sums that the defendants illegally appropriated”, the Angolan justice says that “in other criminal proceedings, damage in the amount of one thousand million, one hundred and thirty-six million dollars”.
The 28-page document also reveals in detail how, for example, funds from Sonangol (Angolan state company) were used for the creation of Unitel, and that for this reason part of the operating rights were handed over to the state but were diverted to other companies.
At stake are the crimes of “embezzlement, influence peddling, economic participation in business and money laundering, foreseen and punishable”.
The document also stresses that the defendant should only be notified after arrest.
It should be recalled that, in an interview with CNN Portugal, Isabel dos Santos said that “bizarrely”, there is no criminal case against her in Angola. “There is a forged decision by the judge of the Supreme Court of Angola, which is sent to Portugal and Portugal takes and acts on this forged decision”, he says, claiming that the opening of cases in Portugal was based on non-existent documents and falsified by Angola .
Part of the consequences of these processes are the arrest and freezing of accounts and assets that the businesswoman has in Portugal – companies like Efacec, which has since been nationalized, which Isabel dos Santos says have been left without a way to pay their bills, including the confines of workers, after a decision by Carlos Alexandre, although he did not mention the name of the judge.