Dos Santos admits transferring state funds abroad
Publish date: 24 February 2020
Issue Number: 861
Diary: IBA Legalbrief Africa
Category: Angola
Angola's ex-President has defended his son and a former Central Bank Governor who are accused of embezzling $500m from the country's sovereign wealth fund, court documents have revealed. Jose Eduardo dos Santos' family is in the spotlight after his billionaire daughter was indicted in Angola last month for a host of high-level financial crimes in the oil-rich nation. A report on the News24 site notes that Jose Filomeno dos Santos is accused of embezzling the funds during his tenure as head of Angola's sovereign fund. He has been charged along with the former Governor of the National Bank of Angola, Valter Filipe da Silva, and two others. The defendants are accused of transferring the funds to a Swiss bank. However, Dos Santos who lives in Spain, said the transfer was meant to guarantee a $30bn investment into Angola to ‘improve the life of the population’. The report notes that he confirmed that he authorised the transfer of the $500m in a written response to questions sent to him by judges. ‘The actions were carried out for the country's economic situation ... not in the personal interest of the people who executed it,’ he added.
Isabel dos Santos took advantage of a US secrecy jurisdiction to transfer illicit funds offshore. That’s according to Fergus Shiel, Luanda Leaks project manager at the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. Al Jazeera reports that he said the Luanda Leaks documents showed that she used a Delaware company to buy property in Portugal. ‘Delaware is one of the easiest places to create a low-taxed, secretive company,’ he said. A new report from the Tax Justice Network reveals that the US is the world's most complicit country in helping individuals hide money from the rule of law. In the Financial Secrecy Index, TJN ranks nations by how much their financial systems allow people to hide and launder money extracted from other countries. The 2020 index found that the US increased its financial secrecy by 15%, and overtook Switzerland as one of the top destinations for people looking to hide money.
