Angola court orders dos Santos’s assets seized: Portuguese agency

Angola’s Supreme Court has ordered the “preventive” seizure of assets worth about $1bn held by Isabel dos Santos, the daughter of its former president, Portugal’s Lusa news agency said on Tuesday.

The court document cited by Lusa, dated December 19, said authorities had evidence of alleged embezzlement and money laundering and ordered the seizure of the money dos Santos holds in “all banking institutions”.

The seizure also includes all of dos Santos’s shares in Angolan company Embalvidro, as well as 100 percent of shares in Cape Verde’s telecom company Unitel T+ and Unitel STP in Sao Tome and Principe, according to Lusa.

A total of 70 percent of her shares in Mozambique’s telecom MStar and Upstar Comunicacoes should be seized too, Lusa said.

For years, dos Santos, once Africa’s richest woman, has faced corruption accusations. In 2019, Angola’s Supreme Court ordered the seizure of her assets for allegedly steering state funds to companies in which she held stakes during her father’s presidency, including oil giant Sonangol.

Her father, Jose Eduardo dos Santos, a former freedom fighter who led Angola from Marxism to crony capitalism, died in July. He ruled Angola for almost four decades until 2017.

A spokesperson for dos Santos did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

She has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing and told CNN Portugal in November that the courts in Angola were “not independent” and that judges there were “used to fulfil a political agenda”.

In November, global police agency Interpol issued a red notice for dos Santos, asking global law enforcement authorities to locate and provisionally arrest her.