Africa’s richest woman, Isabel dos Santos
LISBON/LUANDA, Jan 24 (NNN-AGENCIES) — A banker implicated in the embezzlement and money-laundering case against Africa’s richest woman, Isabel dos Santos, has been found dead in Lisbon.
Nuno Ribeiro da Cunha managed the account of oil firm Sonangol, formerly chaired by Dos Santos, at the small Portuguese lender EuroBic.
Da Cunha was found dead at one of his properties in Lisbon.
A police source told Portuguese media that “everything points to suicide”.
His death, on Wednesday, was reported on Thursday soon after Angolan prosecutors named Da Cunha and Dos Santos as suspects.
Dos Santos denies alleged corruption revealed by leaked documents.
On Wednesday EuroBic said it would end its business relationship with Dos Santos, who is reportedly the bank’s main shareholder through two companies she owns.
It was later reported as saying that Dos Santos was selling her capital stake in the bank.
The bank added that it would investigate transfers worth tens of millions of dollars she had made. Some of the transfers drained Sonangol’s account at EuroBic, the New York Times reports.
Prosecutors in the Angolan capital LUANDA are seeking to recover $1bn that Dos Santos and her associates are alleged to owe the state.
“Isabel dos Santos is accused of mismanagement and embezzlement of funds during her tenure at Sonangol,” Pitta Gros told a news conference on Wednesday evening.
He said that as a result she was being provisionally charged with “money laundering, influence peddling, harmful management… [and] forgery of documents, among other economic crimes”.
The Angolan authorities will now conduct a criminal investigation to determine whether she should be formally charged.
They have also named five other people as suspects in the case, one of whom was Ribeiro da Cunha, and urged them to return to Angola.
Pitta Gros said that if Dos Santos did not return to Angola voluntarily, an international arrest warrant would be issued for her. — NNN-AGENCIES