New Investigaiton Reveals How the Daughter of Former Angolan Ruler Used Her Status to Build an Empire

Isabel dos Santos, who is known as “the princess” in Angola, the oil-rich nation her father ruled as president for almost four decades, has long denied that her estimated $2.2B fortune is the result of nepotism or corruption.  However, an investigation by the Guardian shows otherwise. 

The investigation is based on a trove of 715,000 emails, charts, contracts, audits and accounts obtained by the Platform to Protect Whistleblowers in Africa (PPLAAF), an anti-corruption charity whose work helped topple the South African leader Jacob Zuma.   However, Dos Santos and her husband, the businessman and art collector Sindika Dokolo, say that the incriminating records were falsified by someone who hacked the computers belonging to their employees and legal advisers. They claim they are the subjects of a politically motivated witch-hunt led by Angola’s new president.

The material reveals a network of about 400 companies, many of them offshore, connected to Dos Santos, Dokolo and their associates) that were used in the following schemes: 

• The sale (by Angola's state oil company Sonangol) of its stake in the Portuguese oil corporation Galp, now worth $850M after an initial loan-backed payment of just $12M.
• $115M in payments ordered while Dos Santos was chair of the state oil company, made to consultancy firms, through a Dubai company controlled by her associates.
• Use of $200m in Angola public debt to prop up a venture of the ailing Swiss jewelry brand partly owned by Dos Santo's husband. 
• $500M in over-invoicing by two Dos Santos companies from a real estate development in the Angolan capital, Luanda.  The payments were later cancelled by the new president for “disproportionate compensation”.

Angolan prosecutors launched a criminal investigation into her actions while at the helm of the state oil company, Sonangol, in September. They are working with counterparts in the UK, Portugal, Switzerland, the US and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to trace assets, prevent money transfers and gather information.

Three weeks ago, Angola’s attorney general announced a freeze on the assets of Dos Santos, Dokolo and their chief adviser, alleging that their dealings with the country’s publicly owned oil and diamond companies had “harmed” the state to the tune of $1B.

Africa’s second-largest oil producing nation became known as one of the most corrupt countries on Earth, ranking near the bottom of the Transparency International corruption perceptions index.

“These are the classic symptoms of a captured state,” said Steve Goodrich, a senior research manager at Transparency International UK, after reviewing the Luanda leaks findings. “Here we have industry and politics all in one family, with no apparent separation of powers.”

Since taking over the leadership of the country and its ruling party, the new president, João Lourenço, has vowed to fight the “cancer of corruption”. The most high-profile targets of his anti-graft drive have been the children of his predecessor.

Isabel dos Santos’s half-brother, José Filomeno dos Santos, is on trial for the attempted looting of $500m from the country’s sovereign wealth fund.  Her half-sister, Welwitschia dos Santos, a member of parliament, was impeached last year after fleeing to Britain.

In a sign that the international community is beginning to close ranks against Dos Santos, her name has been removed from a list of participants preparing to meet in Davos this week for the World Economic Forum’s annual gathering of business and political leaders.