Isabel dos Santos leaves the presidency of Unitel, the first Angolan telephone operator

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2 min

Targeted by a vast anti-corruption investigation, Isabel dos Santos, daughter of the former Angolan president, resigned Tuesday evening from the board of directors of Unitel, the country's leading mobile operator. Accused of having embezzled around $ 5 billion from public companies during the reign of her father, Edouardo dos Santos, this year she saw her assets in a multitude of companies frozen by Angolan and then Portuguese justice.

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For Isabelle dos Santos the blow is hard. Unitel is the flagship of its empire, with 80% of the mobile telephony market in Angola, but above all the company constitutes one of its main defense arguments. Indeed to all those who accuse her of having plundered the Angolan economy , she could answer that she had contributed to create 3,000 jobs and enriched the country, by investing nearly five billion dollars in twenty years in Unitel.

Co-founder of the company in 1998, Isabel dos Santos, who still owns a quarter of the capital, left the chairmanship of the board of directors, denouncing "  a climate of permanent conflict and politicization of directors  ".

Clearly, the other shareholders were waging war on it. The question is now for her to know if she will be able to keep her shares in the company, while the Angolan justice pursues her for corruption. Her assets were frozen in a multitude of companies in Angola but also in Portugal, a country in which she had invested a large part of her fortune. "The Princess" as the Angolans call her has always denied these accusations and has so far tried in vain to obtain the release of her assets.

Isabelle dos Santos has always rejected the accusations of prevarication and embezzlement. Even if she retains a quarter of Unitel's capital, her departure from the board of directors is a new blow for this woman considered the richest in Africa.

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• Angola
• José Eduardo dos Santos
• Justice