The daughter of Angola’s longtime former president accumulated riches through embezzlement and money laundering, an Angolan court claims. To recover what was looted, the government froze her assets. Then Portuguese authorities followed suit


Eight years ago, Forbes declared Isabel dos Santos the richest woman in Africa, worth an estimated $3.5 billion. The daughter of Angola’s longtime former president grew immensely wealthy in a textbook case of how to loot a country.
Now, with her father out of office, her empire is a shadow of what it once was, with corruption charges levied against her by her country, assets frozen by courts in three different nations and a lawsuit claiming hundreds of millions of dollars in unpaid debt in a fourth country. Forbes assumes she has no access and likely little chance to gain back control of the frozen assets—together worth about $1.6 billion if not frozen—so we give her no value for them and by our calculations she is no longer a billionaire. As a result, Forbes has dropped Dos Santos, who was worth an estimated $2.2 billion in January 2020.

The Empire Begins To Crumble


Dos Santos’ empire began to unravel under the leadership of Angola’s new president, João Lourenço, who took office in September 2017 after Dos Santos’ father retired. Lourenço vowed to attack the corruption for which Angola had become well-known. (Transparency International ranked the country as one of the most corrupt in the world.) Two months into his tenure he dismissed Dos Santos as the head of state oil firm Sonangol, a position to which her father’s government had named her in June 2016.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/kerryadolan/2021/01/22/the-unmaking-of-a-billionaire-how-africas-richest-woman-went-broke/?sh=6d3fce426240

But the bigger move came in December 2019. As part of a corruption investigation, an Angolan court froze assets in the country that belonged to Dos Santos and her husband—including a stake in mobile telecom firm Unitel and in several banks. The court order stated that Exem Energy BV, an entity owned by Dos Santos and Dokolo, had promised to repay at least $75 million it owes to Sonangol, but had failed to do so. The court also claimed that the couple and one of their business associates had caused the Angolan government to lose at least $1.1 billion. In January 2020 Angola’s attorney general charged Dos Santos and Dokolo with embezzlement and money laundering. At the time, Dos Santos issued a statement saying that the allegations against her were “extremely misleading and untrue” and that she had been a “private businesswoman” who had “always operated within the law.”

Freeze-Out
In April, a Portuguese court froze her roughly $500 million holding in cable TV and broadband firm Nos.
Dos Santos is also being pursued in the U.K. Unitel, the Angolan mobile phone provider where she was a 25% owner, sued Dos Santos in London late last year, claiming her Dutch company, Unitel International Holdings BV, had defaulted in 2019 on multiple loans issued by the telecom firm Unitel beginning in 2012. The company is seeking repayment of $430 million.
In sum, the assets frozen in Angola are probably worth at least $300 million, while the assets frozen or nationalized by Portugal and the Netherlands together would currently amount to about $1.3 billion, but the likelihood of Dos Santos ever getting them back is uncertain. Her homes, yacht, cash and other assets could be worth as much as $400 million, but there’s also that $430 million in unpaid debt that Unitel is seeking.

When Angola first announced the charges against Dos Santos in early 2020, several news reports mentioned that the country would issue an international arrest warrant for her.
So far, that has not happened. Dos Santos is able to move freely between Dubai and the U.K.
Still, life is not the same as it was. “She’s been humbled, she’s been cut down to size,” says Oxford professor Soares de Oliveira. “It just shows that in a lot of these authoritarian places, economic power derives from political power, not the other way around. The moment you lose political power, you can be had. You’re vulnerable all over the world.”

Money gotten through ill means doesn't last.

Make I park here first .

Jones90:
Money gotten through ill means doesn't last.

.......... Stale........ Ibory, O.bi.jay, 2nubu, Babagindar, e.t.c can't go broke.

Tines and seasons.

In the end, everybody would have breakfast!

You see these Forbes... Na set up them be olohun...

Odoogu:
You see these Forbes... Na set up them be olohun...

Once Dem rank you prepare for the worst

African countries are all the same! Battered by corrupt leaders!

Odoogu:
You see these Forbes... Na set up them be olohun...

bros, no be lie

Jones90:
Money gotten through ill means doesn't last.

It does, it just depends on how it was gotten.

Kai. That babe is one hot MILF.

She's so pretty with lovely dimples.

Read Portugal and Netherlands nationalised $1.3billion dollars.

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Koyemi.

Is it that those countries can not return that loot to Angola immediately?

What's the meaning of 'nationalised' in that sense it was used?

Abi na when the money don lose value in twenty years time and dem don possibly make times two on top dem go return am?

blizard44:
Read Portugal and Netherlands nationalised $1.3billion dollars.

---

Koyemi.

Is it that those countries can not return that loot to Angola immediately?

What's the meaning of 'nationalised' in that sense it was used?

Abi na when the money don lose value in twenty years time and dem don possibly make times two on top dem go return am?

nationalized, meaning the countries took over her privately own business and now belongs to the government, this is done in order to avoid a major sack of workers in those companies and for the company to continue growing and returning revenue to govt

That is to say that Angola is better than Nigeria

Ok

Same way Osinbanjo daughters will go broke for looting our common wealth!
That girl that paid $800 million dollars commercial apartment in Abuja.

ruggedtimi:
nationalized, meaning the countries took over her privately own business and now belongs to the government, this is done in order to avoid a major sack of workers in those companies and for the company to continue growing and returning revenue to govt

The money used to set up such businesses belongs to Angola and should be returned to the government of Angola. I don't think it's right for the governments of those countries to nationalize everything. Angola should get something back, don't you think so ?

DankemzI:
Same way Osinbanjo daughters will go broke for looting our common wealth!
That girl that paid $800 million dollars commercial apartment in Abuja.

No wonder corruption reigns in Nigeria. We over exaggerate and over inflate things. 800million dollars haba!!!! Oga dey lie small small

DankemzI:
Same way Osinbanjo daughters will go broke for looting our common wealth!
That girl that paid $800 million dollars commercial apartment in Abuja.

$800m damn....baba even if na naira she won't pay such amount

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