Three years ago, officials at the central bank of Angola sent $500m to a bank account in Switzerland. Since then, the son of Angola’s former president, JosĂ© Eduardo dos Santos, has been charged with embezzling money during his time as head of the Sovereign Wealth Fund. According to the reports in the Wall Street Journal, Dos Santos and his cronies planned to siphon fees and cash from the central bank while pretending to set up a $35bn investment fund. President JoĂŁo Lourenço has led an aggressive anti-corruption campaign since he took over, and it seems as though Isabel dos Santos could be the next member of the former presidential family clapped in irons. – Claire BadenhorstÂ
Son of former Angolan president convicted in $500 million fraud
By Gabriele Steinhauser*
Angola’s Supreme Court convicted the son of the former president and the former governor of the central bank of embezzling $500m from the country’s central bank in 2017.
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José Filomeno dos Santos was sentenced to five years in prison on Friday for participating in a convoluted plot to defraud the National Bank of Angola in the final weeks of his father’s 38-year rule of the southern African country.
The former governor, Valter Filipe da Silva, who authorised the $500m transfer from the central bank’s account in London to the HSBC Holdings PLC account of a private company with no apparent operations, was sentenced to eight years.
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Another former central-bank official and a business partner of Mr dos Santos were also sentenced to five- and six-year terms, respectively. The four men will remain free pending appeals of their sentences, according to the state news agency, Angop.
UK authorities returned the $500m to Angola after the fraud was uncovered in March 2018.
Friday’s judgment marks the first conviction of a family member of former President José Eduardo dos Santos, whom the government of his successor, João Lourenço, has accused of stealing more than a billion dollars from the oil-producing country. Angolan authorities have frozen assets owned by Isabel dos Santos, the former president’s daughter and long considered Africa’s richest woman.
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Ms dos Santos, who was the chief executive of Angolan state oil company Sonangol until November 2017, has denied wrongdoing and says that she built her wealth without help from her father.
Write to Gabriele Steinhauser at [email protected]
