UK Sanctions Angola’s Dos Santos in Dirty Money Crackdown

(Bloomberg) -- The UK government sanctioned three tycoons that it dubbed “notorious kleptocrats” in a fresh attempt to crack down on dirty money flows.

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Isabel dos Santos, the daughter of Angola’s former president, Dmitry Firtash, a Ukrainian oligarch, and a Latvian businessman named Aivars Lembergs were added to the UK sanctions lists Wednesday. The trio and their advisers were hit with an asset freeze and travel ban under global anti-corruption measures, the government said.

Dos Santos, once Africa’s richest woman, has already had hundreds of millions of pounds of assets frozen by a London court, after the Angolan state alleged that she had corruptly enriched herself during her father’s 38-year rule. Lawyers representing dos Santos said she intends to challenge the restrictions.

“Ms. Isabel dos Santos has not been afforded the opportunity to defend herself against these allegations,” they said. “She has not misappropriated any money.”

Meanwhile, Firtash, who has been living in Austria, has been a target of both international and Ukrainian investigations. He hid his “ill-gotten gains” in the UK property market, using his wife to hold assets including the site of a disused London Underground station, the government said.

The sanctions mark the “first step” in Foreign Secretary David Lammy’s attempt to tackle dirty money flowing through the UK, something that he campaigned heavily on while in opposition.

“These unscrupulous individuals selfishly deprive their fellow citizens of much-needed funding for education, health care and infrastructure - for their own enrichment,” Lammy said in a statement.

Firtash made his fortune in the gas trade, expanding into chemicals and television after the fall of the Soviet Union, becoming one of Ukraine’s most powerful men.

He had deep ties to Russia, having profited from deals with gas giant Gazprom PJSC and businessmen from the inner circle of President Vladimir Putin. Since 2014, when Ukrainians ousted Viktor Yanukovych in mass protests — a leader Firtash supported — he has been investigated for alleged corruption in both Ukraine and the US.

Firtash’s lawyers called the UK sanctions “baseless and politically motivated.”

“There are no proper grounds for the sanctions imposed on Mr. Firtash in the United Kingdom,” they said in a statement. “Mr. Firtash has full confidence in the United Kingdom courts, and is sure that the rule of law will prevail.”

Lembergs was sanctioned by the US in 2019. A former mayor of the port city of Ventspils, a key outlet for Russian crude exports in the 1990s, he was found guilty in 2021 of crimes including extorting bribes, forgery and money laundering. His representatives couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.

--With assistance from Aaron Eglitis and Volodymyr Verbianyi.

(Updates with comments from Firtash’s lawyers in tenth paragraph.)

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