The woman who is believed to be Africa’s richest woman, Isabel dos Santos, has been accused of embezzlement and money laundering in her country of Angola.
Dos Santos is the daughter of the former president of Angola, José Eduardo dos Santos, who ruled the country from 1979 to 2017.
Among other things, he made his daughter the boss of state oil company Sonangol in early 2017. That company is the primary source of income for the mineral-rich country, where 70 percent of the population has to live for less than 2 euros a day.
Isabel dos Santos is said to have diverted assets away from Sonangol. After the resignation of her father in September 2017, the established order seemed to be in good hands with the new leader, former Secretary of Defense, Joâo Lourenço. However, he soon began prosecuting the Dos Santos family for corruption.
Dos Santos is said to have raised a total of around two billion euros thanks to embezzlement, corruption and favouritism. She has been under attack for years and lives in London.
She says she has earned her fortune by working hard and contradicts the accusations. 46-year-old Dos Santos has letterbox companies in the Netherlands with whom she manages her international affairs.
Angolan justice seized nearly one billion euros worth of assets from Dos Santos at the end of last year. She has interests in more than forty countries, observers estimate.
On Thursday, her private banker, Nuno Ribeiro da Cunha, the boss at the Portuguese bank EuroBic, was found dead in his home in Lisbon. According to Portuguese media, everything points to suicide. Dos Santos is the bank’s largest shareholder through two other companies.