Álvaro Sobrinho – former BES Angola boss – “can’t pay his bills”
Álvaro Sobrinho – best known in Portugal as the former head of BES Angola, on whose watch hundreds of millions of euros went missing – is claiming/ complaining that asset seizures in place “threaten his economic subsistence”.
The Angolan who rose to extraordinary heights before being accused of “diverting” enormous quantities of money (the amounts change regularly) has had 30 properties, two vehicles and sundry bank accounts ‘seized’ by public prosecutors as a way of guaranteeing his ‘repayment’ of monies which they say are due to the Portuguese State.
The terms of judicial seizures tightened in 2022, while the court case into the various charges against Sobrinho and a number of others is still in the ‘instruction phase’ (the point in which all evidence is assessed to see if it merits going to trial).
Tabloid Correio da Manhã explains today that Lisbon appeal court judges have rejected bids by Sobrinho to release frozen assets, defending the tightened restrictions as due to “new facts and evidence that were not previously considered.
According to the court’s ruling, between the original asset seizures of 2017 and those of 2022, the public prosecution’s office investigation had managed to “trace” the money that was allegedly embezzled from BES Angola “for the supposed benefit of Sobrinho”.
Investigations carried out between the fourth quarter of 2020 and (2022) “revealed a new set of indications on the illicit acts under investigation, the scope of which goes far beyond the body of evidence that was the basis for the previous decisions on asset protection measures”.
Where this case eventually ends up is anyone’s guess. It has been years in its construction – and almost a decade since the fall of BES.
In between time, Sobrinho ventured to other territories – namely Mauritius – where he presented himself as a leading African businessman and philanthropist.
It was charges in Mauritius that seem to have set the pace for the subsequent charges in Portugal.
