Former Angolan first daughter hit with $1bn asset freeze

Isabel dos Santos, the daughter of former Angolan president Jose Eduardo dos Santos, has lost her fight against a bid to freeze $1bn of her assets.

Angolan businesswoman Isabel dos Santos arrives to the opening of an art exhibition in Porto, northern Portugal. Picture: AFP

Billionaire Isabel dos Santos, the daughter of former Angolan president Jose Eduardo dos Santos, has lost her fight against an application to freeze up to £580 million ($1bn) of her assets.

Ms dos Santos, whose father ruled Angola for 38 years until 2017, was sued by Unitel, a telecoms operator in the African country.

The firm had asked London’s High Court to grant a worldwide freezing order over the assets at a hearing last month.

Ms dos Santos had argued the order was unnecessary as her assets have been frozen or seized in other countries including Angola and Portugal.

Judge Robert Bright said in his judgment that the order against Ms dos Santos was “both just and convenient”.

Unitel brought the case against Ms dos Santos over loans made while she was a director of the company to Dutch firm Unitel International Holdings (UIH) in 2012 and 2013.

Despite their similar names, the two firms have no direct corporate connections. The loans were used to fund UIH’s acquisition of shares in telecoms companies.

Ms dos Santos, who built up a vast business empire with stakes in several Angolan and Portuguese companies, claimed to the court that she was the victim of a “political campaign” by the Angolan government.

She said Unitel was itself responsible for UIH’s inability to repay the loans because of its alleged role in Angola’s unlawful seizure of UIH’s assets.

Ms dos Santos’s fortune was valued at $US2.1bn by Forbes Magazine, which named her Africa’s richest woman in 2013.

She was indicted in January 2020 for a host of top-level financial crimes, including money laundering, influence peddling, harmful management and forgery of documents.

The charges relate to her tenure at Sonangol, which she headed during her father’s regime.

She was forced out of the job months after her father stepped down in 2017.

AFP