Just want to point out that both her and her father are very well known around here for big corruption. Mainly moving the state's money (oil and diamonds) into their own private ventures.
When the new Angola President took over, the state reserves were empty. Again on a country that should be getting loads from oil and diamonds
My take was that she seems to have a similar background to a typical Russian oligarch. Being smart enough to take advantage of a particular situation doesn't mean that you should do that.
The problem is articles like this glamorize the people and the activities. "Savvy investor", "lucky". I know the verdict isn't in and if she did her job just right it will never be. The whole point of being so rich and benefiting from nepotism is that nobody can or wants to touch you. But from a reasonable perspective I guess it's pretty obvious that with such relationships you don't get rich in a country where most barely go from one day to the next by making honest business. This while state coffers that should be full somehow stay empty.
On the flip side you have just "mounting scrutiny". This article does too good of a job at staying "impartial" by completely avoiding any claim that the accusations are real. But gives a strong hint that she is actually the savvy businesswoman she presents herself as. You never get sued for defamation for saying that eh?
probably why she has hundreds of businesses in her name located in the UK, France and literally any other place that isn't Africa: https://aleph.occrp.org/search?q=Isabel%20dos%20Santos
Yeah, she seems smart, but being smart alone usually is not enough. Having big piles of cash "stolen" from the one of the richest in natural resources country in the world sure does help.
> Luanda Leaks An investigation into how Africa's richest woman, Isabel dos Santos, acquired her fortune
How Angola's state oil firm was left with just $309 in its account Published: 19 Jan 2020
Revealed: how Angolan ruler's daughter used her status to build $2bn empire Published: 19 Jan 2020
The diamond deal that rocked Angola Published: 19 Jan 2020
You took the old HN rule of “don’t tell people have you even read the article” and took it a step further by asking me if I read a completely different article in the series.
Let’s agree that some episodes in a series are worse than others and the one linked above is that one, if you say all the others don’t have this issue, and I happened to be exactly the one linked in this post.
Does every single piece need to hammer in how awful someone is when the whole makes entirely clear they indeed are?
This is a fairly accurate assessment, based on the pillaging of resources, borne out of a privileged position. The usual pilfering of other assets such as telecoms, banks, apart from oil and diamonds, there is a litany of dodgy loans, stakes in foreign companies, expensive art collection, super yacht, a sprawling property portfolio and more, as is de-rigueur for anyone looting a country, is also mentioned in the article.
The Luanda Leaks are the subject of BBC Panorama tonight at 2030 GMT.