Corruption Amongst African Leaders Ropes in European Banks as They Steal Billions from Economy

Corruption Amongst African Leaders Ropes in European Banks as They Steal Billions from Economy

According to allegations, it is possible that the European Banks have been tied in with some unsavory activities. There are corrupt leaders within Africa that have been forcing the wealth of their economy to dwindle at for their personal gain for quite a while.

On Monday, the Angolan government finally took action to arrest the son of their former president, based on accusations and evidence of a $500 million theft from the country’s wealth fund. However, it seems that a British bank managed to get involved too. Jose Filomeno dos Santos was ultimately arrested to be put in “preventative detention” for now. Originally, he decided to send the funds via Credit Suisse with “forged documents,” which the British authorities intervened due to their concerns over the legitimacy of the transaction.

The prosecutor general Alvaro Da Silva Joao said,

“The evidence gathered resulted in sufficient indications that the defendants have been involved in practices of various crimes including criminal associations, receipt of undue advantage, corruption, participation in unlawful business, money laundering, embezzlement, fraud among others.”

According to the Finance Ministry, dos Santos alleged that the $5 billion wealth fund was concealed as being a project for investments, validated by a European bank.

The arrest of dos Santos is not a surprise for everyone, considering how his own father fired him earlier this year as a result of misappropriating funds from the National Bank. At the time, he agreed to cooperate with the investigation. Since his original arrest, he has been joined by Former Transport Minister Augusto da Silva Tomas, who was accused of embezzlement.

Along with Angola, a few days ago, former dictator Sani Abanacha of Nigeria received demands to return the $100 million that he allegedly laundered. This seems to be a common occurrence for the country, considering the loss of $50 billion in illicit activity annually, according to the African Capacity Building Foundation. To date, the only time that a European bank has returned the funds to Nigeria was back in 2006, when Switzerland returned $500 million. Even in Liberia, the allegations continue, where the former governor of the central bank is being investigated to find the $104 million that should have been in the state’s assets.

The question is, how can this be stopped? Some experts believe that cryptocurrency is the key to battling the corruption and illicit activity in the industry. In a report from Enrique and Eduardo Aldaz-Carrol, which can be found in its entirety on the Brookings Institution website, both crypto and blockchain stand to make a difference.

The report says,

“Cryptocurrency and blockchain could help prevent fraud and corruption, reduce the costs of enforcement thanks to easily accessible information and faster crosschecks, and help supervise implementation and monitor efficiency and effectiveness of spending, increasing development impact.”