Luanda (AFP)
For a long time, she believed herself protected by her patronym. But since the retirement of his father's president, the billionaire Isabel dos Santos has become a target, accused of having built her empire by plundering the resources of Angola.
Already hunted down by the justice her country, the daughter of Jose Eduardo dos Santos, who reigned without division on the country during nearly forty years (1979-2017) finds himself since Sunday in the heart of a new scandal.
After having peeled over 700,000 pirated documents in one of its companies, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) accuses him of having diverted billions from the coffers of Angola, one of the poorest countries in the world.
The woman her compatriots call the "Princess", 46, denied, screaming "lying" and "plotting".
Since its very first investment in a luxury bar-restaurant in the capital Luanda, the origin of Isabel dos Santos' fortune has always been the subject of controversy.
His father's rivals and many observers see it as a symbol of the dos Santos regime's patronage.
In a confidential telegram of December 7, 2009 released by WikiLeaks, the United States Embassy in Luanda assured that Isabel owed her success in business "largely to the support of her father".
During one of her rare press interviews in 2013, she swept the suspicion with the back of her hand, assuring "not to do politics" but exclusively "business".
- Successful boss -
"I have been business savvy since I was very young, I sold chicken eggs when I was 6 years old," said the elder Angolan president. Stating that this pocket money had enabled him to buy cotton candy ... for papa.
Isabel dos Santos was born in 1973 in Baku, Soviet Azerbaijan, where her Russian mother and father studied engineering. This country then welcomed the young executives of the African liberation movements.
When her parents divorced, she moved to London with her mother, where she studied engineering at the famous King's College.
The young woman returned to Angola in the 1990s. After having made her hand by opening the Miami Beach, she took off in 1999 by getting hold of the future first mobile operator in her country, Unitel.
It will never stop. In a few years, this elegant woman with a mat complexion framed by thick jet black hair, built up an empire.
Second black gold producer in sub-Saharan Africa, Angola then took advantage of the crude oil prices at the highest to fill its crates of petrodollars, before the sudden drop in barrel prices in 2014 plunged the country into crisis.
Isabel dos Santos' portfolio is thickened by holdings in telephony (Unitel and the giant Nos in Portugal), banks (BIC in Angola and BPI in Portugal), distribution, diamonds and the media.
In 2013, the American magazine Forbes bombarded her "the first woman billionaire in Africa". Its heritage is then estimated at 3.3 billion dollars.
- In the crosshairs -
In 2002, she married the Congolese businessman (DRC) and art collector Sindika Dokolo. Their wedding in the gardens of the Pink Palace, seat of the presidency in Luanda, would have cost $ 4 million, according to the press.
Isabel dos Santos was then at the height of her glory and her power. She divides her time between London, Lisbon and Luanda, attends the heart of finance and the stars of world cinema at the Cannes festival ...
But the tide turns when his father leaves the presidency in August 2017 and entrusts the keys of the country to his ex-Minister of Defense, Joao Lourenço. Anxious to assert its authority over the country, it takes to dismiss all those close to the old regime in the name of the fight against corruption.
Isabel dos Santos quickly paid the price, dismissed bluntly from his post as CEO of Sonangol, the all-powerful public oil group. Her father had appropriately appointed her there just before retiring.
In the process, the justice opened an investigation into possible embezzlement, now documented by the revelations of the "Luanda Leaks".
Last month, an Angolan court accused her of embezzling a billion dollars of public money with her husband to fuel her business and ordered the freezing of her bank accounts and assets in Angola.
The polyglot has since spread in the media and on social networks to ensure that his fortune is due to his "intelligence", his "ability to work" or his "perseverance", not to his father. And she denounces a "political accounts settlement" on the part of President Joao Lourenço.
It is on this ground that she plans to fight back. Last week, "entrepreneur" Isabel dos Santos threatened to run for president in 2022 in her country.
© 2020 AFP