>https://apnews.com/15a06590ab92a45ac6a05b408973300e
Portugal police: Banker in Angola scandal hangs himself
A Portuguese banker named in a major Angolan money-laundering and corruption scandal has died in an apparent suicide at his home, police said Thursday.
Nuno Ribeiro da Cunha, named as a suspect by Angolan authorities in an investigation targeting the billionaire daughter of Angola’s former longtime leader, appeared to have hanged himself in the garage of his Lisbon apartment building late Wednesday, a police statement said.
Ribeiro da Cunha was the head of private banking at Lisbon-based EuroBic where Isabel dos Santos, reputedly Africa’s richest woman, holds a majority 42.5% stake. The bank says she now intends to sell her stake.
Angolan authorities suspect Dos Santos embezzled millions of dollars from the country’s state oil company and laundered it through foreign banks.
Ribeiro da Cunha’s death occurred hours after Angola’s attorney general, Helder Pitta Gros, speaking in the country’s capital Luanda, named him and Dos Santos among five suspects in the investigation. All the suspects are living outside Angola and have business links with Dos Santos, Pitta Gros said.
Pitta Gros arrived Thursday in Portugal to ask his country’s former colonial ruler for help investigating the case which spans several countries in Africa, Europe and the Middle East.
Angolan authorities suspect that Dos Santos embezzled from the state oil company Sonangol, which she once headed. She is suspected of mismanagement at Sonangol and misappropriation of company money.