A Portuguese hacker had the high stakes world of football in his scope, but while hacking the files of a law firm in Lisbon, he came across something far juicier; the dealings of Isabel dos Santos of Angola. It was something the spikey-haired hacker, Rui Pinto revealed once the authorities caught up with him; perhaps as a ‘get out of jail card’ from the crimes he has been accused of by the football fraternity. And again, it is a law firm that proved to be a treasure trove of information. In the case of the Panama Papers, the documents were stolen from Panamanian law firm, Mossack Fonseca. In an unexpected twist in the Dos Santos leak, a lawyer from the Portuguese law firm PLMJ, where the Dos Santos papers were stolen from, has been found dead. It is an intriguing story with similarities to the Gupta state capture saga where Dubai serves as the final bolthole for the people who plunder the coffers of African countries and where it is more likely that the hackers will find themselves behind bars than the people who plunged their countries into poverty. – Linda van Tilburg
By Thulasizwe Sithole
A Portuguese hacker, Rui Pinto founded the website Football Leaks, in which Pinto revealed the finances of world soccer and in the process found an even bigger treasure trove “by accident” – the documents revealing the business dealings of Africa’s richest woman, Isabel dos Santos. As reported in the New York Times, Rui Pinto spent his life ‘plundering internal documents and secret agreements’ and he unearthed the practices of some of the illegal dealings of the football world, its players, lawyers and teams. The information that he gained from hacking; he published on his website and attracted the wrath of soccer teams and agents who tried to find out who was behind the leaks and to have him arrested. The authorities eventually caught up with him, but before he was detained and extradited to Portugal, Pinto revealed to his French lawyer, William Bourdon in Budapest that he had found information on how the daughter of Angola’s former President, Isabel dos Santos managed to become Africa’s richest woman with a $2bn fortune.
The secrets that Pinto revealed have led to the investigation of Dos Santos who used to head her country’s state oil company Sonangol and other institutions “to bankroll a sprawling business empire that included stakes in the impoverished country’s diamond exports, its dominant mobile phone company, two of its banks and its biggest cement maker.” Angolan officials have in the meantime frozen some of her assets and she is likely to be charged with embezzlement while the transfer of tens of millions of dollars are being investigated.
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The link between Pinto’s Football Leaks and the Luanda Leaks is a Portuguese law firm in Lisbon, called PLMJ to which he gained illegal access by hacking into its computer server. He revealed how PLMJ prepared a 16-page brief for Dos Santos in which they pointed out the advantage of establishing companies in Malta. These, she subsequently used for most of her transactions. “One of her Maltese companies was used as a middleman to hire consultants from firms such as Boston Consulting Group, McKinsey and PWC for advice on overhauling Angola’s state oil company.” PLMJ denied any knowledge of the source of documentation relating to the revelations about Dos Santos.
Rui Pinto – the #whistleblower behind Football Leaks – is the source of our #LuandaLeaks documents.
“Once again a whistleblower is revealing to the world actions that go against international public interest,” said @PPLAAF‘s @BourdonWilliam2. https://t.co/EHwALHf0fZ
— ICIJ (@ICIJorg) January 27, 2020
Pinto turned on the advice of his lawyer to a whistleblower platform that Bourdon had set up in Africa, but the scale and complexity of the documents prompted him to share it with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists that were responsible for the Panama Papers. The ICIJ published the details of what Pinto had found in the Luanda Leaks. Bourdon, who has also represented other high-profile whistleblowers including Edward Snowden has also handed over the hard drive with evidence to France’s national crimes prosecutors.
Bourdon says the claims by Dos Santos that the revelations were politically motivated ahead of the elections in Angola next year and that “it is an attempt to neutralise me and to discredit the legacy of President Dos Santos and his family” is undercut as the man behind the leaks has “no known ties to Angola.” The Luanda Leaks documents also reveal how Dos Santos managed to acquire stakes in Angola’s vital industries including diamonds, construction and telecommunications, “often through orders signed by her father.”
Angola’s investigation into Dos Santos centres around her tenure at Sonangol, particularly during November 2017, the month she was fired as its chairperson. During this time a flurry of invoices were issued by a Dubai company owned by one of her friends. A sum of more than $57m was withdrawn from Sonangol’s account at Eurobic – a Portuguese bank where Dos Santos was the biggest shareholder. In a dramatic turn of events, the bank manager responsible for the EuroBic account, Nuno Ribeira da Cunha was found dead at his house in Lisbon in what appeared to be suicide. EuroBic subsequently ended its relationship with her.
Pinto’s motivation in leaking documents have been questioned as he was accused of hacking into the Caledonian Bank for which he reached an out-of-court settlement in 2014. He denied stealing money and declined to reveal details due to a nondisclosure agreement. His lawyer, Bourdon, hopes that the revelations on Dos Santos would improve Pinto’s standing in Portugal where he still faces 93 charges for exposing the dealings of the soccer industry for which he could spend as much as 30 years in prison.
The soccer revelations led to the criminal tax prosecutions of several top players and it “prompted officials in the United States to reopen a sexual assault investigation involving Portuguese star Cristiano Ronaldo.” US officials decided not to pursue charges against Ronaldo, but Pinto, who hid under the pseudonym John, continues to have repercussions in the soccer world. One of the cases involves Manchester City football club that allegedly tried to circumvent financial rules.
Bourdon argues that Pinto should be regarded as a whistleblower even though he is not an insider and despite the fact that what he did, was illegal. He says Pinto has “suffered because he was inspired by a feeling that his data needed to be published in order to understand all the gloomy and corrupt practices in the football community.”
Pinto is still in custody in Portugal where he is not only accused of gaining illegal access to confidential data, he is also charged with extortion for seeking a million euros in return for the deletion of information of sports company, Doyen Sports.
