The Angolan
government has seized $1.1 billion that the country's former presidential
daughter Isabel dos Santos allegedly stole from the country. Image AFP
RECONSTRUCTION
ABILITY DAUGHTER EX-PRESIDENT ANGOLA
Angola seeks to take away ex-president's daughter through
Dutch court
Angolan Isabel dos Santos and her husband amassed
billions when Dos Santos' father was president. For these dubious transactions,
large-scale use was made of Dutch companies. The Angolan state wants the money
back. On Wednesday, the Enterprise Chamber discussed one of these Dutch
companies.
Tom Kreling17
june 2020, 19:08
Those who don't
know better would think that Isabel dos Santos is an incredibly handy
businesswoman with an ingenious business instinct. For the past twenty years,
she has built a gigantic global empire that started with a beach tent in the
Angolan capital Luanda and ended with cement companies, diamond trading,
supermarkets, beer, oil and the telecom business. Dos Santos saw opportunities
everywhere. And so, before her 40th birthday, she became the richest woman in
Africa.
But there is a
lot to be said for her business ingenuity, lawyers for angolan state oil
company Sonangol said in front of the Amsterdam Enterprise Chamber on
Wednesday. Because Dos Santos and her entourage have made extensive use of
Dutch companies for 'corrupt practices'.
According to these lawyers from the ivy
Ivy lawyers and Cleber offices, her assets were amassed by
boundless self-enrichment, which ended up in a Dutch company, among other
things. And on that company, the Enterprise Chamber had to deal with a unique
case, in which a Dutch judge has to rule on the interests of angolan state and
those of the ex-president's daughter.
'Business
qualities'
Dos Santos, now
47, managed to raise her billion-dollar assets during the time her father José
dos Santos was the president of Angola. So there are also a lot of people who
are not so impressed with her business qualities, but of the clever way in
which she managed to enrich herself with the help of her father.
And now the
current Angolan government, which took office after President Dos Santos
stepped down in 2017 after a whopping 37 years, wants those riches back. Since
then, the assets of Dos Santos and her husband Sindika Dokolo have been seized and criminal
investigations are ongoing into the couple and associated advisers for
corruption, forgery and abuse of power.
The search for
the former president's daughter's assets takes in all the places that are
always used to store and conceal assets with the help of tax experts, notaries
and lawyers. And so Dos Santos has a tangle of many hundreds of companies in
Malta, the British Virgin Islands, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Belize and also
dozens of companies in the Netherlands.
The Enterprise
Chamber in Amsterdam looked at the company Esperaza Holding bv. This company owns shares in
portuguese oil company GALP, which are worth billions. Every year, the bv
receives millions in dividends from Portugal. The company is initially owned by
angolan state oil company Sonangol,
until it sold a 40 percent stake to Sindiki
Dokoloin 2006 , the husband ofpresident's daughter Dos Santos.
One of many
dubious transactions, the Angolan state now states, in which Dos Santos has
enriched himself. And so a whole bunch of lawyers gathered in the Enterprise
Chamber in Amsterdam. On the one hand lawyers on behalf of the Angolan state
oil company and on the other hand lawyers representing dokolo's company.
Kleptocratic
trading
There have been
doubts about Dos Santos' wealth for years. In 2013, the business magazine
Forbes detailed the kleptocratic
trade and walking of the president's daughter. Over the years, business
has become more difficult for Dos Santos. Some banks, such as ING, asked her to
bank elsewhere. Even some trust offices pulled her hands off her because of
stricter regulations.
But she got into
real trouble earlier this year because of the so-called Luanda Leaks, hundreds
of thousands of emails, contracts, tax returns, minutes and other documents
from the internal administration of Isabel dos Santos, which came into the
hands of an international journalist collective, which also includes Trouw and
the FD. The documents detailed dubious deals, after which the Angolan state
took action and seized about 1.1 billion euros in assets worldwide.
It also became
clear how the controversial 2006 deal, around the stake in the Portuguese oil
company, worked together. Donkolo, for
example, would pay 90 million euros to the Angolan state oil company for a
stake in GALP. In the end, a small part was paid by a vague company in the
British Virgin Islands. The rest was a loan from Sonangol, which only had to be repaid with
dividend income.
Wisseltruc
Finally, Donkolo
wants to repay the loan in 2017, a year after his wife was appointed ceo of the Angolan oil company by her father.
This amounts to approximately EUR 72 million. Then the couple pulls out a
switch. Instead of euros, angolan
kwanzas can be settled, resulting in a discount of approximately $50 million
for Dokolo.
But soon after,
Angola has a new president and Dos Santos has lost her job at Sonangol. The state-owned company pays the kwanzas
back to Dokolo and is still demanding the repayment of 72
million euros.
And Sonangol's
lawyers now want the Dutch Enterprise Chamber to intervene in the Dutch joint
venture between Sonangol and
Dokolo. For example, a director, who according to the Angolan state
belongs to dos Santos's entourage, should be suspended and donkolo's shares
should Donkolo be registered with an
independent person. Angola's ultimate goal is to roll back dubious deals and
take away all of Dos Santos' assets.
Smear campaign
But according to
donkolo's lawyers from van Doorne's office,
Doorne there is so far no
evidence of all the suspicions and there is a 'smear campaign' against him and
his wife Dos Santos. There has been an incorrect and 'extremely tendentious'
picture for some time, said one of them. Ex-president's daughter Dos Santos has
previously said there is a "witch hunt" and a political reckoning.
And in response to the Luanda
Leaks, she said that 'stolen
documents that are selectively leaked and mis-image of her business activities
are being sketched'. 'I'm a businesswoman who spent 20 years building
businesses from the ground up, created 20,000 jobs and generated a lot of tax
revenue for Angola.'
The Enterprise
Chamber will rule within six weeks.
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