Forbes List Isabel dos Santos WAS the richest woman in Africa
in 2020, and Forbes estimated her wealth amounted to $1.4 billion dollars. Her story begins in the
Republic of Angola, a country on the west coast of Southern Africa. Her journey to wealth started
in 1974, just two years after dos Santos was born. Her father, Jose dos Santos, was put in charge of
The Republic of Angola's foreign affairs. Jose, born in 1942, served his native Angola in the
military and low political positions. He used this experience to climb the political ladder
in just five years. However, the ladder he climbed was on fire and covered by political opponents
involved in a civil war to control Angola. Jose just so happened to come out on top. In 1979,
he was elected to the head of Angola's armed forces, and later that year, the entire nation.
The young nation was supposed to hold democratic elections, but Jose didn't leave office until
2017. On one occasion, in 2001, Jose promised the people he would step down. However, when Election
Day came around, Jose won anyway and served sixteen more years as President of Angola. Helping
him run the show, we're his three children, of which Isabel was the oldest and most ambitious.
GREAT EXPECTATIONS By being the dictator's oldest child,
Isabel was under tight pressure to do her part in governing Angola. Although she was never elected
by any Angolans, dos Santos was appointed to the head of an Angolan oil company in 2016.
Many in the Angolan media saw the move as corrupt nepotism.
On the other hand, Isabel was actually more qualified than most, at least on paper.
Her parents, Jose and Tatiana, sent their daughter to a prestigious school in London,
where a young dos Santos received one the best educations planet earth
had to offer. Dos Santos got to work right out of school,
using her father's connections to enter the business world on behalf of her fellow Angolans.
PORTUGUESE CONNECTION One of her biggest partners
was the Portuguese. Ironically, Portugal used to govern Angola as their colonial rulers but
kept close ties with their former subjects through tight economic relationships.
Dos Santos helped keep these relationships strong by investing millions into Portuguese businesses.
She's pumped money into their telecommunications industry,
fashion, and retail. Dos Santos also acquired companies and invested capital into others,
making herself millions of dollars down the road as her investments grew.
Her biggest deal with the Portuguese occurred when dos Santos created an international
telecommunications beast called Unitel. Unitel was part Angolan and part Portuguese. Dos Santos
used the company to help create jobs in Angola by implementing training programs for engineers,
technicians, and several other positions that would help boost Angola's economy.
By 2016, dos Santos was worth over $2 billion and still breaking through the business world. Yet,
it seemed strange that dos Santos was still getting help from her old man,
Mr. president—or Mr. Dictator to most. But Jose was a family man, and so was his daughter.
Despite being constantly busy with work, dos Santos made time to start a family of her own.
Sindika Dokolo In 2002, dos Santos
married Sindika Dokolo. Dokolo was a businessman hailing from the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
He invested his money similarly to his wife: in Portuguese industries.
Where did he get all this money? Dokolo, like his wife, grew up in an affluent home. His father was
a millionaire who made his fortune from banking in European markets. The rich tend to marry rich,
and the dos Santos family was no exception. Dokolo and his wife made a great team, spending their
family's money on smart investments in Portugal and Angola. It was a match made in heaven.
Eventually, dos Santos' success caught the attention of Forbes magazine.
Since most billionaires are usually white men, the business media giant decided to write a piece
on dos Santos, the richest woman in Africa. They portrayed dos Santos as a successful businessman
but with a twist. Forbes gave dos Santos credit for her accomplishments. However,
they made it clear that dos Santos could not have become a billionaire without her father,
the most powerful man in Angola.
Her father gifted dos Santos an oil company in the same way regular dads would buy their
kids a Toyota or an outdoor swing set. Her journey to becoming a billionaire seemed like
a classic case of socio-economic privilege. But dos Santos was much more than privileged.
Forbes and everyone else were making the wrong assumptions and asking the wrong questions,
the most important question being: where did she get her initial investment capital?
One group of journalists finally asked the question and dug up some shocking answers.
LUANDA LEAKS The International
Consortium of Investigative Journalists, or ICIJ,
is a network of 280 journalists who communicate across borders to take down corrupt governments
and stop crime. They decided to investigate dos Santos and her business operations.
The question of where she got her investment capital lingered over dos Santos' business
like a puffy white cloud until the ICIJ blew the cloud away with the now infamous Luanda Leaks.
After years of digging, the ICIJ published a report in January 2020 they dubbed the
Luanda Leaks, after the capital city of Angola. The report revealed information
that—if proved true in court—would cost dos Santos her entire fortune.
Coincidence Coincidentally or not, her
principal money manager mysteriously died in her garage three days after the report was published.
Nuno Ribeiro da Cunha was a professional banker and dos Santos' private money manager.
If there was anyone who could potentially testify against dos Santos,
providing a jury a deep dive into the richest woman in Africa's finances,
it was Cunha. His death, though tragic, would appear to be advantageous for dos Santos. However,
the tragedy didn't stop dos Santos from taking serious heat over the report.
FROZEN Assets The heat came from the
Angolan government freezing all her assets—even the assets she owned in Portugal—resulting in dos
Santos losing her long-held billionaire status. She went from ten figures to zero. But why?
What kind of crime did dos Santos commit to warrant such drastic legal action? Well,
as it turns out, the capital dos Santos used to invest with over the past couple of decades
didn't belong to her; it belonged to the people of Angola.
Publicly Funded The ICIJ cited
715,000 files in their report. Each file was evidence pointing to a possible truth:
dos Santos had funded her business ventures using public funds. Dos Santos, and her husband, we're
involved in building over 400 companies whose locations were sprinkled throughout the world,
including 94 secret jurisdictions like Malta and Hong Kong. According to the ICIJ,
all these investments were taken from public companies in Angola.
In layman's terms, dos Santos—probably with help from her father—took money from
government-owned businesses and invested it without having to return it, like a free loan.
These public companies were under the authority of president Jose dos Santos for nearly three
decades. He was one of the few individuals in Angola who could pull hundreds of millions out
of a publicly owned entity and get away with it. Jose was criticized throughout his reign
for being a nepotist. He received the most criticism for appointing his children to positions
of political power, like the head of a big Angolan oil company. The critics won in the end.
Stripped Isabel's tenure as the head of
the Angolan oil company was short-lived. After her father Jose finally stepped down in 2017,
the new president, Joao Lourenco, fired dos Santos. President Joao also canned Jose's
other children, who he put in positions of great power. The dos Santos era was over. If
the Luanda Leaks had been released 4 or 5 years earlier, Jose would have most likely swept the
whole issue under the rug. However, the new president knew he had to go after dos Santos.
In addition to freezing Isabel's assets, the Angolan government froze Dokolo's assets as well.
They covered all of dos Santos' bases, except her relationship with the United Arab Emirates.
Freediving The UAE was one of the few countries still
willing to take dos Santos in. The UAE was also the place where Dokolo died months before. His
death was like something out of a campy movie. On a sunny afternoon in late October 2020, under the
sparkling ocean waves of Dubai, Dokolo dived down to the ocean floor without any scuba equipment.
The practice is called freediving. Freedivers dive without SCUBA gear, leading to a more
natural and time-precious experience. You dive down as far as you can go, and when your lungs
start screaming to your brain for air, you pop up to the surface. Except Dokolo never popped up.
Many suspected dos Santos had something to do with Dokolo's strange and sudden death
when the news got out. He had been a healthy, active man in his late 40s.
And he happened to be another individual with crucial information on dos Santos' business
dealings. But after a thorough investigation, Dubai police found no evidence of foul play.
Aftermath Not getting prosecuted for murder was
a victory within itself. However, dos Santos still had to face prosecution from different countries.
Angola wanted her to literally pay for her crimes, and they weren’t the only ones.
Portugal didn't throw a party when they found out millions of stolen dollars had
been invested in their economy. The Portuguese businesses took the case to a Dutch court,
which ordered dos Santos to pay out $500 million in restitution.
Contrary to evidence and guilty court verdicts, dos Santos still believes
she’s innocent. She has repeatedly claimed the legal attack on her is a political witch hunt
and isn’t based in reality. For example, immediately after her assets were frozen,
the former first daughter of Angola posted a photo on Twitter ensuring the public of her innocence.
As dos Santos continues to be prosecuted by her former country, her future looks
bleaker with every swing of the gavel, regardless of how innocent she claims to be.
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