DUBAI - Isabel dos Santos, once Africa’s richest woman, has found Dubai a safe base to avoid arrests, despite an Interpol warrant issued in 2022.
Dos Santos, the daughter of the former Angolan president, lives in near-freedom in the city with her mother, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists found.
Angola charged dos Santos with 12 crimes in January, but the United Arab Emirates (UAE) does not have an extradition treaty with Angola.
Although Interpol has asked governments around the world to find and provisionally arrest Isabel dos Santos, the Angolan former billionaire is not hiding.
Instead, she regularly posts about her lavish lifestyle at a Dubai residence on social media.
Now, confidential land records connect dos Santos and her mother to other properties on the waterfront of the UAE financial hub.
The eldest daughter of Angola’s former president, dos Santos came under scrutiny by authorities on three continents after the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists’ Luanda Leaks investigation revealed how lucrative deals obtained under her father’s rule helped her become Africa’s richest woman.
Since 2019, courts in Angola, Portugal and other countries have issued orders to freeze her assets. Despite that, Dubai has remained a safe haven for dos Santos.
Dos Santos’ mother, Regan, is the first wife of Angola’s former autocratic president José Eduardo dos Santos. Regan was born in Russia and is a citizen of the United Kingdom.
Regan worked at Angola’s state oil company Sonangol in the 1970s before divorcing her husband and moving with her daughter to London. The pair later controlled a Gibraltar company that had a 24.5% stake in Angola’s diamond monopoly Ascorp, according to U.K. court documents.
Earlier this year Angola’s prosecutors charged dos Santos with 12 crimes, accusing her of defrauding the country of $219 million during her time as the head of the state oil company. A London court also ordered a freeze on up to $733 million of her assets.
The indictment reiterates ICIJ’s reporting that linked dos Santos and her close associates to several Dubai shell companies that she used to divert millions of dollars from Sonangol, Angola’s state oil company, when she was its chairwoman in 2016 and 2017.
