Uncrowned: The rise and fall of Isabel Dos Santos

Isabel Dos Santos, daughter of ex-Angolan president José Eduardo Dos Santos, is actually being investigated for illegal transactions and corruption.

She was known as the African Queen, the richest woman in the continent: a true self-made businesswoman, in her own words. For 37 years, while her father ruled Angola, she held the top positions in the statal trade of diamonds and oil and became on of the most influential people in and outside Africa. Following a well-established system of kleptocracy and nepotism, Isabel Dos Santos has been able to weave a complex cobweb of companies and banks related to her family, mostly in tax havens, but also with the complicity of unprincipled businessmen, lawyers and consultants.

Even though Ms. Ana Gomes, a Portuguese member of the European Parliament, had already pointed at Dos Santos in 2015, accusing her of illict operations, the Angolan Pandora’s vase has only recently been opened: the so called #LuandaLeaks, a huge amount of files including private conversation and e-mails, which The Guardian has collected and made public (https://www.theguardian.com/world/series/luanda-leaks), aim to reveal how Dos Santos used her power and position to build a fortune worth $ 2.1 billion, deviating public money to private bank accounts or to a network of over 400 companies related to her family. The oil giant Sonangol, which she controlled for years until 2017, is supposed to be one of the most important statal companies she has been looting, while impoverishing the economy of her country. 

What emerges, though, seems to be just the tip of the iceberg. Dos Santos’ illegal connections involve other countries, often above any suspicion, as in the case of Portugal. Portuguese bank Eurobic (42.5% owned by Isabel Dos Santos) facilitated economic transactions, often through the tax-haven island of Madeira, and so did other Portuguese banks, pretending not to see or know, as the Minister of Foreign Affairs Augusto Santos Silva bitterly admitted.

Although most international banks refused to deal with Lady Angola, as Isabel Dos Santos was also known, she was able to defy their system and continue to pilfer on her country’s recources.

Now that the moment of truth has come, while she strongly defends herself, claiming to be the victim of a political plot, one of her closest collaborators, Portuguese lawyer Nuno Ribeiro da Cuhna has been found dead this week in his home. Apparently, he committed suicide.

Dos Santos’ crown might be at peril. Her kingdom of crime and corruption might eventually collapse. But Angola and Africa deserve a different Queen. 

Maria Taglioli

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• News

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• International Migration