The EBA says in a report published this Tuesday that, as a result of these failures, "there is a risk" that money obtained from corruption processes associated with what is considered the richest woman in Africa, daughter of former Angolan president José Eduardo dos Santos, can continue to be laundered through the European Union (EU) financial sector.
The agency does not specify which supervisory authorities have complied and which have not complied with the envisaged investigation procedures, but notes that more than half of the competent authorities evaluated the information made public in 2020 by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) in the dossier ' Luanda Leaks'.
On the other hand, several oversight institutions later identified entities that were not even explicitly mentioned in the investigative journalistic work.
Others, however, "did not take any action" when the leaks of around 700,000 documents were published, revealing a web of more than 400 shell companies, companies in tax havens and political favors that benefited the daughter of the former Angolan head of state, especially from June 2016, the year in which Isabel dos Santos was placed in charge of the state oil company Sonangol.
The EBA, which was mandated in July 2020 by the European Parliament to conduct an investigation into the 'Luanda Leaks', also noted that not all relevant banking supervisory authorities have taken advantage of the cooperation channels.
In other words, there was no exchange of information through the existing instruments for this purpose, in order to understand and prevent the risk of money laundering and the financing of terrorist activities.
The agency recalls that its guidelines clearly set out how these authorities should identify, assess and manage these risks.
According to the media associated with that investigation, while Isabel dos Santos was at the helm of Sonangol, until her resignation at the end of 2017, with the new government of President João Lourenço, tens of millions of dollars of Angolan public funds were transferred to the foreigner.
