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According to sources, Isabel dos Santos, a billionaire from Angola, has been the subject of an Interpol arrest warrant.
Dos Santos, the daughter of Angola's former dictator José Eduardo dos Santos, was the focus of the 2020 Luanda Leaks investigation.
According to the Luanda Leaks reporting, dos Santos amassed her wealth through insider dealings, political connections, and a large network of Western enablers.
The exposé exposed how the billionaire and her allies profited from lucrative transactions in the fields of real estate, banking, telecommunications, oil, and diamonds.
In response to a request from Angolan prosecutors, Interpol reportedly issued the warrant, according to Portugal's official Lusa news agency.
According to officials with the Polcia Judiciária in Lisbon, the Interpol warrant says that between 2015 and 2017, dos Santos established illicit financial structures.
According to the claim, the procedures were developed "with the intention of obtaining illicit financial gains and whitewashing suspicious criminal operations."
According to the sources, the warrant also claims that dos Santos used knowledge she acquired while serving as the leader of Sonangol, Angola's state-owned oil business, to make decisions.
Dos Santos, 49, was allegedly wanted for money laundering, fraud, influence peddling, and embezzlement, according to Lusa.
When asked to confirm that it had requested dos Santos's arrest internationally after receiving a "Red Notice" from Angola, Interpol declined to comment, stating that it did not comment on specific cases unless there were exceptional circumstances.
A "Red Notice" request, according to Interpol, is a request for law enforcement agencies all over the world to "locate and provisionally arrest a person pending extradition, surrender, or similar legal action."
Dos Santos has repeatedly refuted accusations that she engaged in any misconduct or unfairly benefited from her father's presidency of Angola.
The Luanda Leaks investigation exposed dos Santos' activities in a network of firms, notably Sonangol, and had a significant effect on Africa's then-richest lady and her family.
The assets and bank accounts of dos Santos were frozen by Angolan and Portuguese authorities, who also opened criminal investigations. The commercial empire was largely destroyed.
Dos Santos and other influential Angolan personalities accused of embezzling billions of dollars were linked to financial havens by the ICIJ's Pandora Papers investigation last year.
Dos Santos' assets and bank accounts were subsequently frozen, and criminal investigations into her company were started by the US.
Dos Santos reportedly frequents Portugal and has residences in Dubai and London.
After a protracted illness, José Eduardo dos Santos, an autocrat who ruled over Angola for decades, passed away in Barcelona last year.
Her husband, Sindika Dokolo, perished in a free diving accident off an island not far from Dubai the year before.
He and his wife had acquired a stake in the Portuguese oil business Galp in a manner that was "tainted by illegality," according to a ruling made by an international tribunal in the Netherlands after his passing.
The panel required dos Santos to give back the $500 million interest she acquired through Sonangol in a contentious arrangement while her father was still in office.
The Galp stake was purchased by dos Santos and Dokolo in the deal, which was at the time handled by dos Santos' father, for merely a $15 million initial payment.
An archive of 715,000 documents, including emails, charts, contracts, audits, and accounts, served as the foundation for the Luanda Leaks investigation and provide insight into how dos Santos amassed a $2 billion empire.
The documents were acquired and provided with ICIJ by a Paris, France-based organization called The Platform to Protect Whistleblowers in Africa.
Dos Santos' attorneys said in a statement issued to Reuters today that she was not informed of the arrest warrant.
The ICIJ's FinCEN Files investigation also focused on Dos Santos' business activities.
By fLEXI tEAM