Banif. Web of business and corruption between Portugal, Angola and Brazil
The Web of Banif. The title of the book by journalist António José Vilela condensed how the former Banco Internacional do Funchal was used by the Angolan elite for money laundering and corruption in Portugal and to create a network from that financial institution.
In the preface to this book, edited by Casa das Letras, João Paulo Batalha writes: “From the investigation of an obscure attempt by figures of the Angolan State to discreetly buy a smaller bank of the Portuguese financial system (Banif) we arrived at a proxy bought by the Angolans ( Operation Fizz), the money laundering and tax evasion schemes set up at the service of the powerful in Portugal (Operação Monte Branco and Hurricane); the culture of influence peddling that gripped Armando Vara, one of the country’s great business politicians (Face Oculta), (…) to the money laundering machine that Isabel dos Santos and other Angolan bigwigs set up in the Portuguese financial system and to the summit of this corruption economy that dominated the country for years, in the economic plan (BES) and in the political plan (Operation Marquis).”
This web begins then, as explained by António José Vilela, deputy director of the magazine Saturdayin an attempt to control this bank, created in 1988, a project by private investors, including Horácio Roque.
In this investigation that lasted several years, the journalist reveals hundreds of unpublished documents, telephone tapping – some between Armando Vara and José Sócrates, former prime minister involved in Operation Marquês – and emails involved. The bank will have been used to “launder” 1.5 million euros in business involving the Angolan elite and with links even to the “Lava Jato” case in Brazil.
Isabel dos Santos and beyond
António José Vilela demonstrates that the Angolan businesswoman Isabel dos Santos was not the only face of this opaque business scheme in our country, to which the Portuguese financial system turned a blind eye.
His sister Tchizé dos Santos, also a businesswoman, the then administrator of Sonangol, Manuel Vicente, the banker Carlos José da Silva, or General Kopelipa, close to the then Angolan president José Eduardo dos Santos, were central figures in the circulation of millions of banks portuguese.
“This is a story of a cursed bank (and Millenium BCP, BPI, BPA Atlântico and Eurobic and their bankers) that will launder more than 1.5 billion. And it ended up intervened and sold by the Portuguese State, dragging private investors and a lot of money public. A case that is still under investigation”, says the author.
Still in the preface, João Paulo Batalha “discloses bad news” that the book reveals: “There is a core of corruption at the center of the democratic regime in Portugal, which captures politics, finance, the economy and important parts of Justice”.
The entire investigation contained in A Teia do Banif was carried out largely through the consultation of judicial investigations of various processes and demonstrates that there is “ineffectiveness of the judicial power in the prosecution and testimony of those responsible”.
The book mentions tapping of phone calls between Portuguese officials that intersect with the Banif case. “The criminal facts of the Face Oculta/Attack on the State of Law and Banif cases were quite different, but two unlikely links between them died: several voice and SMS conversations about the Banif bank were recorded from Armando’s phones Vara (with Sócrates and others), and later found documents found in the Millenium BCP administrator’s office”, writes António José Vilela.
The Deputy Director of Saturday this work also reveals how most of the processes that were opened in Angola ended up falling by the wayside, as the Angolan power always managed to control the entire system.