Africa's Richest Woman Now Formally A Suspect In Angolan Corruption Probe

Isabel dos Santos, the billionaire former first daughter of Angola who is said to be one of Africa's wealthiest people, has been accused of rampant financial misconduct in order to line her own pockets.

The allegations, announced Wednesday by Angola's top prosecutor, come just days after a major media investigation released more than 700,000 documents related to dos Santos' business empire — and the questionable conduct that built it — in what has become known as the Luanda Leaks.

"Isabel dos Santos is accused of mismanagement and embezzlement of funds during her tenure at Sonangol," Attorney General Hélder Pitta Grós told a news conference Wednesday evening in the country's capital, Luanda, according to the BBC. Sonangol is Angola's state-owned oil firm.

Dos Santos, who is among a handful of formal suspects in the probe, is also suspected of "money laundering, influence peddling, harmful management ... [and] forgery of documents, among other economic crimes."

The prosecutor did not rule out requesting the support of international police agencies Interpol and Europol, according to the Angola Press Agency, to force dos Santos' return from the U.K., where she currently resides.

Isabel Dos Santos

✔@isabelaangola

ICIJ report: This is perpetrated by political agenda to neutralize Isabel dos Santos. “Information” leaked by angolan intelligence services was used to manipulate ICIJ, and to further Angolan Authorities political agenda. Already:ICIJ Panama papers were disproved in UK High Court

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Her objections thus far have failed to mitigate the fallout, however.

EuroBic, the Portuguese bank in which dos Santos held a 42.5% stake, and which she is alleged to have used in corrupt financial transactions, announced earlier this week that it is parting ways with her companies and her business partners "to safeguard trust in the institution." And it is embarking on an immediate audit.

The Associated Press, citing a police statement, reports that the head of EuroBic's private banking division, Nuno Ribeiro da Cunha, who was also named as a suspect by Angolan prosecutors, apparently took his own life late Wednesday in Lisbon.