Without going into detail about the results of the recent trip by the PGR, Hélder Pitta Grós, to Switzerland, the prosecutor and director of Communication and Press of this body, Álvaro João, rejected that the trip was a failure.
“The PGR’s trip to Switzerland was fruitful and anyone who points to it as a failure can only be intentional,” he responded this Friday to journalists, arguing that the PGR did not go to the country in search of assets lost in favor of the State in the São Paulo case. Vicente, but rather to establish contacts, so that the court's sentence can be fulfilled.
Speaking on the sidelines of a lecture on “The Legal Regime for Asset Recovery in Angola”, the person in charge noted that the PGR was in the Swiss Confederation establishing contacts and legal mechanisms with that State.
“In order for you to request the recovery of assets located in that country, this involves legal and judicial mechanisms in that State, it is necessary for a judgment from the State to be recognized in the other State”, he stressed.
The Portuguese-Angolan businessman, son-in-law of the first President of Angola, António Agostinho Neto, is serving a nine-year sentence for embezzlement, tax fraud and money laundering, having also been sentenced to pay compensation of 500 million dollars.
João Lourenço clarified, in April, that the country is trying to recover, but without success, assets worth almost two billion dollars from Portuguese-Angolan businessman Carlos São Vicente. The President mentioned that the PGR has been working since December 2023 with the Swiss authorities, a country where a large part of these resources are domiciled in banks, without having been able to recover these amounts to date.
Carlos São Vicente has bank accounts in Switzerland, with more than one billion dollars, in addition to other accounts in Portugal, Singapore, Dubai and Bermuda, according to data provided by the PGR itself.
Álvaro João also highlighted the importance of São Vicente's “illicit” assets passing into the State's patrimonial sphere, in compliance with the court's ruling, admitting, however, that the negotiation process with the Swiss authorities should take time.
“Based on the volume of assets that we have in that State, withdrawing them abruptly is clear that the other economy will suffer and no one wants to weaken their economy, but there are mechanisms to recover these assets so that they come directly to Angola, and are within its patrimonial sphere (…). I conclude that the PGR’s trip to Switzerland was fruitful”, concluded the magistrate.
At the end of April, lawyers for businessman Carlos São Vicente asked for an end to what they consider to be a “relentless campaign” of discredit promoted by the Government against the Portuguese-Angolan businessman.
