After a silence of nearly two years, the former head of the Espírito Santo Group, Ricardo Salgado, is launching a book this Thursday, the result of lengthy conversations with journalist Alexandra Ferreira.
‘BES - os dias do fim revelados’ (BES – the last days revealed) covers the events that led to the fall of the Espírito Santo Group, with an acerbic chapter reserved for BES Angola boss, Dr Álvaro Sobrinho whose appointment Salgado refers to as "one of the biggest mistakes of my career."
Sobrinho has an impressive and useful CV. A solid career within the bank in asset management, a sound background in mathematics and important links to the family of José Eduardo dos Santos, the Angolan President, as Sobrinho is his nephew.
In 2009, the National Bank of Angola determined that the computerised information should only be sent to the Angolan capital Luanda, with direct links cut to Banco Espírito Santo in Lisbon.
Salgados claims that he therefore was dependent on the financial information sent by Sobrinho himself, infering that such information easily could be manipulated.
It was only through Manuel Vicente, the Angolan vice president (recently involved in a money laundering and bribery case in Portugal,) that Salgado says he found out that BES Angola was in trouble.
When the BES Angola accounts were reconciled, Salgado claims that the subsidiary had lost track of more than five and a half billion dollars.
Salgado claims he was shocked, by "a terrible situation. I could not believe what I was seeing, it was awful."
BES Angola is one of the pieces of the puzzle that led to the collapse of the Espírito Santo Group, but it is only one chapter in a book written after long conversations carried out during Ricardo Salgado's period of house arrest.
Salgado seems keen to apportion blame, in this instance to Dr Sobrinho, who has not been charged with any criminal offence and has been cleared by Portugal’s financial authorities of all alleged infractions and offences.
BES Angola was controlled by Dr Sobrinho for ten years. He reported directly to Ricardo Salgado a salgado's instruction, thus circumventing internal BES reporting links and controls - to Salgado’s benefit.
The Bank of Portugal said that it had looked at Banco Espírito Santo and BES Angola, and had found 'inadequate procedures regarding the prevention of money laundering.' This was due in part to the insistence by Salgado the BES Angola reported to him, and him alone.
A European Banking Authority’s letter in late 2014 to MEP Ana Gomes said the Bank of Portugal could and should have done more to look at and stop any money laundering between Banco Espírito Santo and BES Angola.
Salgado’s book should be a good read as the ‘Dono Disto Tudo’ no doubt will be blaming everyone but himself for the collapse of the once great empire of which he was left in charge.
Expect detailed media analysis over the coming days. The book may be stocked under ‘fiction.’
