Following the public ministry’s probe into alleged corruption by Angola’s vice-president José Manuel Vicente, another ‘shock’ has hit the press: that of €500 million ‘missing’ from BES Angola, which public prosecutors insist is down to Angolan VIP Álvaro Sobrinho. The public ministry has put in a new bid to seize Sobrinho’s properties in Portugal as its first attempt failed at Lisbon’s Court of Appeal last July.
Sobrinho meantime has consistently affirmed his innocence.
The former president of BES Angola’s executive commission is described by tabloid Correio da Manhã as an “investor of reference in Sporting” football club.
As CM explains, when Sobrinho left BES Angola in 2012, it owed BES €3.3 billion relating to “credits received from the old bank of the Espírito Santo family”.
Last summer, Sobrinho’s lawyer Artur Marques argued successfully that there was no proof of crimes committed by his client to justify seizure of Sobrinho’s various luxury properties.
