Beautiful Virgin Islands

Wednesday, Sep 03, 2025

Leaks Show Large Firms Aided Dos Santos’ Offshore Empire

Leaks Show Large Firms Aided Dos Santos’ Offshore Empire

A trove of 715,000 leaked emails, charts, contracts, and audits details how the daughter of the former Angolese president Isabel dos Santos, reportedly Africa’s richest woman, managed to amass and shield her US$2 billion fortune with the help of western consulting and accounting firms.
Boston Consulting Group, Price Waterhouse Cooper, PwC, McKinsey & Company, and Accenture provided financial services to dos Santos and her husband, Sindika Dokolo, a high-profile Congolese businessman and art collector, that allowed them to safeguard their fortune abroad.

Dos Santos has shares in multiple Angolan state banks and companies such as the telecommunication company Unitel. The couple has built an empire of over 400 companies and subsidiaries, operating in over 94 financial secrecy jurisdictions such as Malta, Mauritius and Hong Kong.

Critics say that Dos Santos and her husband have been syphoning mostly natural resources of one of the world’s poorest countries where two-thirds of the country’s population survives on less than $2, while the government now says that dos Santos and her husband owe the state over $1 billion.

Documents reveal that PwC was perhaps the worst perpetrator in assisting the couple with their offshore companies. They found that firms such as PwC continued to provide services despite the fact that other banks had rejected them and regulators had flagged customers matching this profile.

“It’s not exactly our finest hour,'' Bob Moritz, Chairman of the PwC Network said at the Davos Summit following the release of the Luanda Leaks.

He assured summit participants that the company had already severed ties with dos Santos and that it would work “with speed” to make sure that incidents like these would not occur in the future.

The files, dubbed the ‘Luanda Leaks’, were acquired by the anti-corruption charity Platform to Protect Whistleblowers in Africa, PPLAAF, which then shared them with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, ICIJ, a high profile organization perhaps most well-known for its publication of the Panama Papers, which went on to release the documents publicly on Sunday.

Over 120 journalists from 37 media outlets that include the New York Times, the Guardian, the BBC, French newspaper Le Monde, and Portuguese newspaper Expresso, collaborated to review the documents disseminated in the leak, which spans between 1980 and 2018.

The leaks coincide with a recent Transparency International analysis that show over 400 cases in which hundreds of professional advisors and accountants have provided services to financial criminals that have amounted to a total of $412 billion in the UK alone.

“Without the assistance of these people, these corruption schemes and the money laundering that flows from that would be unable to happen.” Ben Cowduck, of the UK chapter of Transparency International, told ICIJ.
“It’s a fabulous set of revelations which I’m absolutely delighted by” said Nicholas Shaxon, who has written extensively on the offshore industry, in an interview for France 24.

On one hand there is the traditional story of corruption in Africa, “which, of course, we hate,” but on the other we have the less familiar story of how the money is taken from the west by large financial firms who are “helping capital flight, helping the draining and the looting of Africa.”
Newsletter

Related Articles

Beautiful Virgin Islands
0:00
0:00
Close
Germany in Turmoil: Ukrainian Teenage Girl Pushed to Death by Illegal Iraqi Migrant
United Krack down on human rights: Graham Linehan Arrested at Heathrow Over Three X Posts, Hospitalised, Released on Bail with Posting Ban
Asian and Middle Eastern Investors Avoid US Markets
Ray Dalio Warns of US Shift to Autocracy
Eurozone Inflation Rises to 2.1% in August
Russia and China Sign New Gas Pipeline Deal
China's Robotics Industry Fuels Export Surge
Suntory Chairman Resigns After Police Probe
Gold Price Hits New All-Time Record
Von der Leyen's Plane Hit by Suspected Russian GPS Interference in an Incident Believed to Be Caused by Russia or by Pro-Peace or by Anti-Corruption European Activists
UK Fintechs Explore Buying US Banks
Greece Suspends 5% of Schools as Birth Rate Drops
Apollo to Launch $5 Billion Sports Investment Vehicle
Bolsonaro Trial Nears Close Amid US-Brazil Tension
European Banks Push for Lower Cross-Border Barriers
Poland's Offshore Wind Sector Attracts Investors
Nvidia Reveals: Two Mystery Customers Account for About 40% of Revenue
Woody Allen: "I Would Be Happy to Direct Trump Again in a Film"
Pickles are the latest craze among Generation Z in the United States.
Deadline Day Delivers Record £125m Isak Move and Donnarumma to City
Nestlé Removes CEO Laurent Freixe Following Undisclosed Relationship with Subordinate
Giuliani Seriously Injured in Accident – Trump to Award Him the Presidential Medal of Freedom
EU is getting aggressive: Four AfD Candidates Die Unexpectedly Ahead of North Rhine-Westphalia Local Elections
Lula and Putin Hold Strategic BRICS Discussions Ahead of Trump–Putin Summit
WhatsApp is rolling out a feature that looks a lot like Telegram.
Investigations Reveal Rise in ‘Sex-for-Rent’ Listings Across Canada Exploiting Vulnerable Tenants
Chinese and Indian Leaders Pursue Amity Amid Global Shifts
European Union Plans for Ukraine Deployment
ECB Warns Against Inflation Complacency
Concerns Over North Cyprus Casino Development
Shipping Companies Look Beyond Chinese Finance
Rural Exodus Fueling European Wildfires
China Hosts Major Security Meeting
Chinese Police Successfully Recover Family's Savings from Livestream Purchases
Germany Marks a Decade Since Migrant Wave with Divisions, Success Stories, and Political Shifts
Liverpool Defeat Arsenal 1–0 with Szoboszlai Free-Kick to Stay Top of Premier League
Prince Harry and King Charles to Meet in First Reunion After 20 Months
Chinese Stock Market Rally Fueled by Domestic Investors
Israeli Airstrike in Yemen Kills Houthi Prime Minister
Ukrainian Nationalist Politician Andriy Parubiy Assassinated in Lviv
Corporate America Cuts Middle Management as Bosses Take On Triple the Workload
Parents Sue OpenAI After Teen’s Death, Alleging ChatGPT Encouraged Suicide
Amazon Faces Lawsuit Over 'Buy' Label on Digital Streaming Content
Federal Reserve Independence Questioned Amid Trump’s Push to Reshape Central Bank
British Politics Faces Tumultuous Autumn After Summer of Rebellions and Rising Farage Momentum
US Appeals Court Rules Against Most Trump-Era Tariffs
UK Sought Broad Access to Apple Users’ Data, Court Filing Reveals
UK Bank Shares Dive Over Potential Tax on Sector
Germany’s Auto Industry Sheds 51,500 Jobs in First Half of 2025 Amid Deepening Crisis
Bruce Willis Relocated Due to Advanced Dementia
×