Portuguese, Angolans and Cape Verdeans fined in France for bags with three million euros

The Correctional Court of Marseille decided on Monday to apply fines between 500,000 and 14,945 euros to three Angolans, two Portuguese and a Cape Verdean who in 2013 tried to pass three million euros across the border between France and Monaco. General Bento dos Santos, known as "Kangamba", married to a niece of former president José Eduardo dos Santos.

According to an official source at the court, the fines accumulated exceed one million euros among the six defendants.

The sum of three million euros was seized in two different operations in the south of France, on June 13, 2013, a shoe box with around two million euros was discovered in one car and in another car a suitcase with around 910 thousand euros. Both vehicles had Portuguese registration.

The occupants would come from Portugal with money that was not declared at any of the borders and the final destination would be Monaco, where General Bento dos Santos' credit card would have exceeded the funds limit. The money would be used to pay for the stay in a luxury hotel and other debts.

The French court, according to the Agence France-Presse, will have tried to find out if this was the real reason for the circulation of this amount of money.

The French authorities tried to listen to the Angolan general, without success, and to carry out investigations in Brazil and Portugal, also without success, as there were suspicions that the funds were used for a network of prostitution.

As these facts were not proven, the six suspects were only fined for not having complied with the obligation to declare funds in excess of 10,000 euros in cash when crossing borders within the European Union, with the three million euros being returned to the defendants. .