According to the note, published on the official Facebook page, João Lourenço justifies the decision by saying that LL Internacional Holding BV is "at the moment, a company subject to strong restrictive measures in the country and abroad, which led to the seizure of its social participation by the National Asset Recovery Service and the establishment of sanctions by the US Office of Foreign Assets Control".
The presidential decree states that "the maintenance of LL Internacional Holding BV in the corporate structure, with the current judicial and reputational problems, calls into question the strategy of Sociedade Mineira de Catoca Lda, since it makes it impossible to access vital functions for the development of current and future mining projects".
Through this diploma, quotas are transferred to the State, regardless of any formalities, free of any encumbrances or charges, "being enforceable against third parties after registration".
The participation of Leviev International - LLI (China), which held 18 percent of the mining company, was blocked in 2021 and its control transferred to the Instituto de Gestão de Ativos e Participações do Estado (IGAPE), at the request of the Attorney General's Office. of the Republic.
With this change, Angola, which already held majority shareholder control through Endiama (state-owned diamond company), now holds 59 percent of Catoca's shares, with the remaining 41 percent going to Russian giant Alrosa.
According to the Financial Times, LLI is linked to China Sonangol, which told the newspaper that it currently has no relationship with Sam Pa, a Chinese businessman close to the former president of Sonangol and former vice-president Manuel Vicente, appointed as an intermediary in numerous deals. sale of oil, through the China International Fund.
Sam Pa was arrested in early October 2015 at a hotel in the Chinese capital, with no further information about his whereabouts since that date.
In 2020, the PGR of Angola seized the CIF Luanda One and CIF Luanda Two buildings, located in the capital, as well as more than a thousand unfinished properties, buildings, shipyards and land, in the Vida Pacífica (Zango Zero) urbanization and in Kilamba, within the scope of of the Law on Coercive Repatriation and Extended Loss of Assets and the Law Regulating Searches, Searches and Seizures.
The properties were in the possession of the companies China International Fund - CIF, Limited (CIF Hong Kong) and China International Fund Angola - CIF, Limited.
CIF Limited is a Chinese private company based in Hong Kong and with an office in Beijing, founded in 2003 to finance national reconstruction and infrastructure development projects in developing countries, mainly in Africa.
