U.S. Bans Angolan Billionaire Isabel dos Santos for Corruption

The United States has sanctioned Angolan billionaire Isabel dos Santos, along with her nuclear family, for her involvement in significant corruption, marking the first public U.S. response to years of accusations of wrongdoing.

According to U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, dos Santos, the daughter of Angola’s former longtime autocratic president, Jose Eduardo dos Santos, used her position to engage in corruption by “misappropriating public funds for her personal benefit.”

The International Consortium of Investigative Journalism’s Luanda Leaks details two decades of insider deals that made Dos Santos rich and left oil- and diamond-rich Angola one of the poorest on the planet.

On the same day as Blinken’s announcement – International Anti-Corruption Day, December 9 – the U.S. Department of the Treasury also announced sanctions against two former Angolan government officials. The department said Leopoldino Fragoso do Nascimento and Manuel Helder Vieira Dias Junior “stole billions of dollars from the Angolan government through embezzlement.”