Álvaro Sobrinho, the former head of Banco Espírito Santo in Angola (BES-A) has been charged by the authorities in Mauritius, the island to which he moved after his name in Portugal became synonymous with corruption and larceny, despite avoiding charges from Portugal's public prosecution service.
Sobrinho, long desirous of a banking licence, stands accused of providing false information to the Financial Services Commission in Mauritius.
Sobrinho swept into the Indian Ocean island, handing out Range Rovers and Jaguar cars to senior officials in order to buy his way in to an administration that he viewed as suitably open to bribery.
Despite the suspicion that Sobrinho relieved BES Angola of billions through dodgy loans that were never repaid, he has avoided all charges in Portugal.
Sobrinho became a billionaire during the time he was CEO of Banco Espírito Santo - Angola despite failing to run the bank with the required degree of propriety.
BES-A granted US$6.5 billion of loans without compliance with internal regulations, without adequate record-keeping and without adequate collateral, leaving the bank with 90% of its loan portfolio at risk of being irrecoverable.
It soon became clear that funds were at risk so BES-A obtained a letter from the Angolan government giving a sovereign guarantee that all such money on loan, was not at risk.
Some of the beneficiaries were top figures in the Angolan government, also members of the ruling People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola. Álvaro Sobrinho did not avoid getting stuck in and gave companies he controlled loans that have never been repaid.
The self-styled billionaire then bought himself a network of influential people through his Planet Earth Institute, a charity whose trustees include Lord Paul Boateng, Sir Christopher Edwards, chairman of the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital National Health Service Trust and Ameena Ghurib Fakim, President of the Republic of Mauritius.
Sobrinho wanted a financial operating licences and local media in Mauritius reported that existing regulations were twisted during the last State budget to satisfy Álvaro Sobrinho’s demands. The businessman managed to secured four licenses to operate international companies under the jurisdiction of the Mauritious regulatory system.
It is the issuing of these licenses that is being challenged on grounds that Sobrinho falsified documents and that favouritism has been displayed as the licenses were issued prior to the publication of the amended rules.
Even, Ivan Collendavelloo, the Deputy Prime Minister and a prominent lawyer in Mauritius who drafted the laws leading to the setting up of the Independent Commission Against Corruption, swept aside all allegations about Alvaro Sobrinho’s conduct on the island.
Following a meeting with Sobrinho, Collendavelloo famously stated to local media, “I have looked into the eyes of Álvaro Sobrihno and am convinced his money is clean.”
In March 2016 after a silence of nearly two years, the former head of the Espírito Santo Group, Ricardo Salgado, launched a book - 'Os dias do fim revelados’ (BES – the last days revealed) covering the events that led to the fall of the Espírito Santo Group. The book has a chapter reserved for the former BES-Angola boss, whose appointment Salgado refers to as "one of the biggest mistakes of my career."
