US sanctions Angolan billionaire Isabel dos Santos for corruption
The United States sanctioned Angolan billionaire Isabel dos
Santos on Wednesday for her involvement in significant corruption, marking the
first public U.S. response to years of accusations of wrongdoing.
Dos Santos’ business empire was the subject of Luanda Leaks,
a global exposé published by the International Consortium of Investigative
Journalists in 2020.
U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken cited dos Santos,
the daughter of Angola’s former longtime autocratic president, Jose Eduardo dos
Santos, “for her involvement in significant corruption by misappropriating
public funds for her personal benefit,” according to a press release.
Under the designation, which was released on International
Anti-Corruption Day, dos Santos and her immediate family are now barred from
entering the United States.
“These sanctions will give hope to many Angolans and preempt
Angolan officials from using public funds for their own benefit while many
still live in extreme poverty, without access to clean water, education and
healthcare services,” said Florindo Chivucute, executive director of Washington
D.C. based nonprofit, Friends of Angola, which has advocated for U.S. measures
against the billionaire.
Dos Santos ran Angola’s state-owned oil company from 2016 to
2017. She has previously denied wrongdoing, labeling accusations against her a
“witch hunt.
The State Department’s announcement comes almost two years
after ICIJ and a team of 120 journalists from 36 countries revealed how two
decades of corrupt deals helped turn dos Santos into Africa’s wealthiest woman
while leaving Angola one of the world’s poorest countries.
The Luanda Leaks investigation was based on more than
715,000 documents that provide a window into the inner workings of dos Santos’
business empire. The Platform to Protect Whistleblowers in Africa, an organization
based in Paris, France, obtained the files and shared them with ICIJ.
After the investigation, authorities in Angola, Malta, the
Netherlands, Portugal announced a suite of lawsuits and investigations into dos
Santos and her companies, and many of her business ventures have been largely
dismantled.
Dos Santos’ business dealings also featured in ICIJ’s FinCEN
Files and Pandora Papers investigations. She is believed to currently be living
in the United Arab Emirates.
Under today’s announcement, the State Department also
imposed visa and entry bans on officials from Ukraine, Guatemala, El Salvador,
Liberia, Nicaragua, Colombia and two other high-profile Angolans
Referring to a suite of measures announced today, Blinken
said, “these complementary actions promote accountability for corrupt actors
across the globe to disrupt and deter those who would seek to act with
impunity, disregard international standards, and undermine democracy and rule
of law.”
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