According to the Singapore newspaper The Straits Times, Judge Vincent Hoong considered that the businessman's request to withdraw the 2.6 million dollars from his account in Singapore does not make sense, since his family members can help him financially to bear the legal costs of the proceedings against the Portuguese-Angolan national in various international jurisdictions for allegedly having harmed the State when he was president of the AAA insurance company.
It is difficult to assess the extent of São Vicente's fortune, due to the various and large international transfers between its various accounts in various international banks, argued the judge, adding: "In these circumstances, I am unable to consider as a proven fact that the applicant is incapable of to access funds that represent only a fraction of the percentage of his fortune, based only on his simple words", wrote the judge, quoted by the newspaper.
Adding that there is sufficient evidence that the businessman's relatives have access to funds that are more than sufficient to cover his legal expenses, the judge stresses that "it is not unreasonable to expect the applicant to explore the possibility of seeking funds from his family ", not least because "these assets were given by the applicant himself, so there are good reasons for the family to be inclined to extend financing to him".
Carlos Manuel de São Vicente's account at the Bank of Singapore contained more than US$558 million, having been confiscated by the Singapore Department of Commercial Affairs on February 19, 2021, with another woman's account having more than US$5 million of dollars, and another one from his son Ivo, with more than 10.5 million dollars, in the same bank, adds the newspaper.
Pre-trial detained since September 2020, the crimes imputed to Carlos São Vicente, according to the prosecution, involved amounts in excess of one billion dollars, although in a sentence known at the end of September last year, the Swiss judges speak of an "estimate of more than $4 billion" in funds embezzled due to the convict's commercial activities.
The businessman, who for almost two decades had a monopoly on insurance and reinsurance for the state oil company Sonangol, is said to have set up a triangular scheme, with companies in Angola, London and Bermuda, which generated losses for the national treasury.
With this scheme, and according to the Swiss indictment, Carlos São Vicente, owner of one of the largest private business groups in the country at the time, also managed not to share profits from the insurance and reinsurance business with other co-insurers, such as the public insurer ENSA, jeopardizing , thus, these companies, as well as Sonangol itself.
For the prosecution, Carlos São Vicente created at a certain point a "kind of business with himself, within the AAA group [of which he was the owner], causing the embezzlement of public funds".
The accusations and the “excessive preventive detention” were repeatedly challenged by the defence, which promised in March to appeal the sentence handed down by the 3rd Criminal Section of the District Court of Luanda.
