An Angolan court has ordered the confiscation of “all balances of demand deposit bank accounts owned or shared” by the daughter of former Angola President Jose Eduardo dos Santos.
The Angolan Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Public Prosecution’s request and ordered the preventive seizure of several assets belonging to Angolan businesswoman Isabel dos Santos, worth one billion euros.
In the document, which CNN Portugal obtained access to, the Angolan court ordered the confiscation of “all balances on demand bank deposit accounts owned or shared” by the daughter of former Angolan president Jose Eduardo dos Santos.
“All balances of demand deposit bank accounts named or jointly owned (or in which he appears as real and/or authorized attorney), domiciled in all banking institutions, including term deposit accounts, and other financial investments associated with those files including Address files in the name of the defendant Isabel dos José dos Santos”, in the document.
Some companies are headquartered in countries such as Mozambique, Cape Verde, and São Tomé Principe. The Supreme Court has ordered the freezing of 70% of the holdings of the Mozambican telecom company MSTAR in which Isabel dos Santos is the “effective beneficiary”, as well as 100% of the holdings of UNITEL T+ in Cape Verde and UNITEL STP in Sao Tome and Principe in that the defendant is also “Beneficiary Beneficiary”.
Other companies covered by the court’s order are EMBALVIDRO, in which the court ordered the freezing of 100% of the shares and all bank accounts, 70% of the shares in UPSTAR Comunicação and 100% of the shares in UNITEL International Honding and UNITEL International.
In addition to the billion dollars “which is commensurate with the value of the sums illegally seized by the accused,” the Angolan justice says that “in other criminal proceedings, the damage is in the amount of one billion, one hundred and thirty-six million dollars.”
The 28-page document also reveals in detail how, for example, money from Sonangol (an Angolan state company) was used to set up Unitel, which is why part of the profits from these operations had to be handed over to the state but diverted to other companies.
And at stake, there are indications of the crime of “embezzlement, influence peddling, economic participation in business and money laundering, expected and punished.”
The document also stressed that the accused should not be informed until after his arrest.
It should be noted that Isabel dos Santos, in an interview with CNN Portugal, said that, “oddly enough”, there is no criminal case against her in Angola. “There is a forged decision issued by a judge of the High Court of Angola, which was 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 that were forged by Angola.
Part of the result of these operations is the confiscation and freezing of accounts and assets owned by the businesswoman in Portugal – companies such as Efacec, which have since been nationalized, and which Isabel dos Santos says were left without the means to pay their bills, including workers’ wages, following a decision by Carlos Alexander, though he does not name the judge.
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