"Engineer Isabel dos Santos never made transfers associated 'with her family', this claim being false and defamatory. Engineer Isabel dos Santos is an independent businesswoman, and there is no association between her business and her family. The entrepreneur only represents her own interests and those of no one else," says a statement sent this Monday to Lusa, reacting to the investigation released on Sunday by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), of which Expresso, of the Impresa group, is a partner.
According to the investigation, the daughter of former President José Eduardo dos Santos "was the subject of two reports on suspicious activities in 2013 in the United States, one from JP Morgan and the other from Standard Chartered" due to "transfers linked to Unitel and the diamond business in which Sindika Dokolo [Isabel dos Santos' husband] was a partner of the Angolan state".
According to Expresso, the report is dozens of pages long and was completed on October 16, 2013: "It is one of the two documents included in FinCEN Files that are related to Isabel dos Santos. An employee of the compliance department at JP Morgan Chase Bank in the United States sent it the next day to FinCEN, the federal agency responsible for processing and forwarding suspicions about potential money laundering schemes for possible investigation by law enforcement authorities".
The note sent to Lusa reads that "Isabel dos Santos or her companies have never been clients of any US bank," pointing out that "it is completely false and defamatory that a US bank" has helped the businesswoman "in transfers associated with her family or the Angolan state".
The document adds that JP Morgan, "as the correspondent bank of BFA/BPI," makes regular 'compliance' requests, requesting information on various transactions and from various clients of the bank," considering this to be an "absolutely normal" practice.
Although neither Isabel dos Santos nor her father were clients, "the report sent to FinCEN shows how JP Morgan had been indirectly involved, as a correspondent bank, in transfers related to the family and the Angolan State" and "there was one transfer in particular that caught the institution's attention: Sindika Dokolo, Isabel dos Santos' husband, had sent on March 2, 2012 four million dollars to an account of a Dutch company, Melbourne Investments BV, which passed through a correspondent account of JP Morgan".
The businesswoman devalued the investigation, considering that it is a "scheme to launch news and suspicions to destroy the engineer Isabel dos Santos and her companies".
"The financial transactions reported in the journalistic articles are from 2013, i.e., they occurred more than seven years ago. This information is regurgitated and refined and is part of the defamatory campaign that continues to be fed by those who saw their illegitimate earnings cut in Sonangol when engineer Isabel dos Santos served as PCA [chairman of the board of directors] from June 2016 to November 2017," the note adds.
Isabel dos Santos stressed that she or her husband "are not part of any illegal and/or illegitimate scheme to circulate funds in the international or US banking system" and refuted the "regurgitated and unfounded falsehoods and news".
"It is clear that the intention is to cause reputational damages, so we refute these falsehoods and regurgitated and unfounded news," concluded the businesswoman.
The report includes a list of 26 entities and persons - where Isabel dos Santos, Sindika and José Eduardo dos Santos are listed - that could be related parties, including Galp in Portugal, where the entrepreneur had an indirect shareholding.
"In all, the bank identified a total of $829 million in transfers between 2005 and 2013 related to the universe of these entities, but set aside the overwhelming majority of them and focused on reviewing only a few tens of millions," says Expresso.
Movements made between July 3, 2006 and March 2, 2012 were identified from accounts controlled by Sinkika Dokolo that passed through corresponding accounts of foreign banks at JP Morgan.
The investigation involves over 2000 confidential bank documents ('FinCEN Files') obtained by BuzzFeed News and shared with ICIJ, which reveal how some of the world's largest banks, including HSBC, have been used in fraud cases.
