The fate of First Family children

Dos Santos children besieged

Angola has sub-Saharan Africa’s third-largest economy as a result of its oil and diamonds. But Angola’s wealth has failed to bring economic development and the country’s education and health standards for its 32 million people are abysmally low, according to the U.N.

In 2016, toward the end of his rule, Eduardo dos Santos appointed his daughter as the head of Angola’s state-owned oil firm, Sonangol, and it seemed that the dos Santos family would continue to benefit from the country’s wealth.

But after he stepped down as president in 2017, his personally chosen successor, Lourenco, began an anti-corruption drive. He sacked Isabel dos Santos from the state oil firm and his government has taken steps to recover large amounts of money from abroad.

Her brother, Jose Filomeno dos Santos, is currently being tried in Angola for allegedly helping to smuggle $500 million out of the country when he was head of Angola’s Sovereign Wealth Fund. He denies the charges.

HSBC Bank of the UK froze an account connected to an alleged $500m fraud by José Filomeno dos Santos, in a development the bank hailed as a sign its compliance systems are working. HSBC has previously been flagged for allegedly laundering at least $881m for Mexican drug barons and handling transactions for countries under US sanctions, such as Iran, Libya and Sudan.

The UK’s National Crime Agency said it had seized the $500m transfer in December and January on suspicion of fraud and would be returning the money to the Angolan authorities through a process in the British courts.

Other banks scrambled to claim they were checking if they handled money in the alleged Angolan fraud, since the emergence of the case involving José Filomeno dos Santos, who until January 2019 was head of Angola’s $5bn sovereign wealth fund.

The alleged fraud involved money being siphoned out of Angola’s central bank and paid into a corporate account at HSBC in the UK. The Angolan media reported that the money was transferred from the central bank to the account of a front company.

Credit Suisse claimed it had discovered that fake documents purporting to be from the Swiss bank were used as part of the fraud. The Swiss bank said the alleged fraud involved falsified documentation and it had not received any funds in relation to it.

Valter Filipe da Silva, a former governor of the Banco Nacional de Angola, has also been accused in the case, Angop, the Angolan press agency, reported.

Meanwhile, the Bank of Portugal is evaluating Isabel dos Santos’ suitability as a shareholder of Portuguese banks, it was reported on Jan.03 following the Angolan court order of her assets.

Isabel Dos Santos holds significant stakes in several important Portuguese firms, including a 42.5% stake in Eurobic bank and shares in telecoms company NOS, and engineering company Efacec. She is also a stakeholder in oil and gas company Galp Energia, whose largest shareholder Amorim Group is partly owned by a holding company jointly controlled by Angolan state oil company Sonangol and a firm called Exem Energy, of which dos Santos, Dokolo and da Silva are beneficiaries. Dos Santos is not on the board of any entity subject to their supervision but holds 42.5% of Eurobic bank. She does not currently hold shares in any other Portuguese banks.

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