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When Isabel dos Santos was under intense scrutiny, she turned to one of the biggest secrecy havens in the world: the U.S. Our reporting reveals dos Santos and her husband, Sindika Dokolo, used Delaware companies to conceal their control of a $1.8 million Lisbon penthouse. Last week, the Tax Justice Network ranked the U.S. as the world’s second-most secretive jurisdiction, behind only the Cayman Islands, in its annual “financial secrecy index.
BREWERY TAX DODGE
A nexus of ICIJ investigations: Appleby (remember them from Paradise Papers?), the tax haven Mauritius (hello Mauritius Leaks) and Luanda Leaks. Dos Santos and Dokolo wanted a brewery that could serve wealthy and working-class Angolans. They enlisted the help of some usual suspects – PWC in this case, and went shopping in Mauritius for the right tax rate. Tax law professor Rita de la Feria told us the case “showed a level of arrogance that consultancy companies had at that time in regard to tax avoidance.”
The latest from the Panama Papers criminal case in the United States. Harald Joachim von der Goltz pleaded guilty and told the court: “I’m profoundly sorry for my actions and for the harm I have caused not only to the United States but to the people I deceived.” U.S. prosecutors will recommend von der Goltz spend up to 15 years in prison.
Until next week!
Amy Wilson-Chapman
ICIJ’s community engagement editor
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