The United Arab Emirates financial intelligence reacted to the Angolan authorities’ requests by freezing Mr. Mwenenge assets due to his financial corruption.
During the regime of the former Angolan president Jose Eduardo dos Santos, several public benefits such as diamond mining and more had gone onto the reach of his daughter Isabel dos Santos. With the incoming of the Angolan new government, Luanda, the Capital of Angola, leaks a new investigation by the International Consortium of Investigation Journalists and 36 media partners to expose dos Santos’ decades’ corruption. This led to the exposure of several confidential documents of about 715,000. Some documents showing dos Santos, her husband, and Mr. Konema Mwenenge’s secrets are shown below.
The new Angolan government officially announced they were on a hunt if dos Santos and associates had embezzled several millions of dollars from the public oil and diamond trading companies. They also informed further that they would also investigate if the public benefits awarded to the former Angolan president daughter were inflated to deceive the public or not.
Due to the governmental investigative actions, in February this year, the Angolan government sent a mutual assistance request letter to the Financial Intelligence Unit of the United Arab Emirates Central Bank to help in freezing the assets of Mr. Mwenenge due to his relation with Isabel dos Santos.
Mr. Mwenenge is a prominent Franco-Congolese businessman, power broker, childhood friend, and a lifetime associate of Santos’ husband, Sindika Dokolo. According to the Angolan state companies, Isabel dos Santos, her husband, and Mr. Mwenenge are public fund embezzlement subjects of several legal proceedings in Luanda.
Due to the relationship between the three, before the beginning of Ramadan on April 13, the United Arab Emirate Financial Intelligence increased its contribution to aid the Angolan authorities in the fight for justice. The financial intelligence increased its request to Emirati banks to freeze any bank account that the former Angolan president’s daughter, Isabel dos Santos, her husband, Sindika Dokolo, and Mr. Mwenenge, have with them.
Several banks have implemented this request, while some are yet to comply. Last week, the Emirates NBD, formerly known as the National Bank of Dubai, got its hands on Mr. Mwenenge’s account and froze it. After that, two other banks, including Mashreqbank, reported their action of freezing Mr. Mwenenge business and personal account in their possession.
The ongoing collaborative investigation of the Angolan Africa intelligence and the United Arab Emirate Financial Intelligence has unveiled more hidden facts about local banks. It was surprising that some local banks offer electronic bank (digital bank) to their client who is concerned about discretion and like to have a hidden account unknown to anyone. This digital bank was based on the American bank model Payoneer.
One of the banks which offers Mr. Mwenenge digital banking is the Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank (ADCB). The bank permitted Mr. Mwenenge to open several electronic banks and allowed him to transfer online money, which is an easy means for money laundering. Further investigation shows that Mr. Mwenenge has several digital bank accounts, which he opened with his Belgian passport.
Till now, no information has been collected from CitiBank and HSBC banks on whether Mr. Mwenenge has an account with them or not. Although these two banks are international banks with branches in the United Arab Emirate, the financial intelligence request must be provided to have certain data and unveil their hidden financial corruptions.