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The International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol) has issued a red notice to Angolan billionaire businesswoman Isabel dos Santos the daughter of Angola’s late former President Jose Eduardo dos Santos.
The Interpol notice, which requests that global law enforcement authorities find and temporarily detain dos Santos, who was once Africa’s wealthiest businesswoman, comes after she revealed in an interview on Tuesday that Angolan courts were not independent and judges were “used to fulfill a political agenda.”
In response to earlier reports on the subject, Interpol explained that the “red notice” is “not an international arrest warrant,” but rather a “request to law enforcement worldwide to locate and provisionally arrest a person pending extradition, surrender, or similar legal action.”
According to Reuters, dos Santos, who spends her time in Portugal, the UK, and the United Arab Emirates, has consistently denied wrongdoing despite being accused of corruption for years, including accusations made by Angola in 2020 that she and her husband diverted $1 billion in state funds to businesses in which they had stakes while her father was president, including Sonangol, the world’s largest oil company.
Interpol’s latest move comes nearly a month after the Angolan government, led by President Joao Lourenco, seized shares in Unitel S.A., the country’s leading mobile telecommunications company, from dos Santos and one of her deceased father’s associates, Leopoldino Fragoso do Nascimento.
While commenting on the decision to take control of the telecom operator, appropriating the shares of Isabel dos Santos and Nascimento, Lourenco stated at the time that the nationalization of Angola’s primary telecom operator will ensure the business’s continuity as a going concern.
“The nationalization of Angola’s main telecom operator aims to ensure the taking of decisions necessary for the continuity of the business through a more efficient, transparent management model aligned with the company’s strategic interests,” he said.
According to Forbes magazine, dos Santos was once considered Africa’s wealthiest woman, with a net worth of more than $2 billion.
However, she was removed from the list in January 2021 after her bank accounts and assets were seized on corruption charges in Angola, Portugal, and the Netherlands.
After being found guilty of exploiting the country’s oil wealth, a court in the Netherlands ordered her to hand over to Angola shares in the Portuguese oil company Galp Energia worth $500 million in July 2021.
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