Africa’s Richest Woman Says Probe Is Based on Fake Passport
Africa’s Richest Woman Says Probe Based on Fake Passport
Africa’s richest woman, Isabel dos Santos, said that a fake copy of her passport with the signature of martial artist and actor Bruce Lee was used to seize her assets in Angola and in Portugal.
An internet fraudster claiming to represent her interests used the document to propose a loan to a Japanese startup before Angolan authorities presented it as part of evidence that she was attempting to transfer large sums of money abroad, Dos Santos said Tuesday in an emailed statement that includes pictures of the forged passport.
“This not only served as the basis for the confiscation of all the property of Ms dos Santos in Angola, but also for a rogatory letter asking the Portuguese judiciary to freeze her assets in Portugal,” Dos Santos said.
Dos Santos’s assets in Angola were frozen late last year after authorities in the southwest African nation accused her of engaging in deals with state-owned companies that cost the state $1.14 billion. In February, Portuguese prosecutors also froze Dos Santos assets in the country, home to a sizable portion of her estimated $2.4 billion fortune, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
The daughter of former President Jose Eduardo dos Santos, who has been living outside Angola since 2018, has denied any wrongdoing and says the allegations are politically motivated.
Angola’s prosecutor general’s office said late on Tuesday that Dos Santos currently faces several civil and criminal cases in which the state claims more than $5 billion. While the authenticity of a copy of her passport was investigated in one of those cases, the elements proved in that process “weren’t based on any identity document, but on documents that attested to the fear of dissipation of assets,” it said in a statement.
Dos Santos said her lawyers found the copy of the falsified Angolan passport and a string of emails about the loan proposal when they were given access to court files at the end of April. The fake passport contains at least six glaring errors, including an incomplete name, two different passport numbers and a wrong date of birth, she said.
“The most ridiculous aspect is the signature of the issuing authority: this is a reproduction of the signature of Bruce Lee,” she said.
©2020 Bloomberg L.P.