The Spanish businessman who did business with the diamonds of the 'Princess of Africa'

The Spanish businessman Mauricio Toledano , executive president and main shareholder of the multinational Eurofinsa, was a partner for more than five years of the Angolan Isabel dos Santos, the richest woman in Africa, in the Swiss high jewelry firm De Grisogono. They coincided in the shareholding of that company between 2012 and 2016. In the years prior to that period, the Government of Luanda, chaired by the father of the businesswoman, José Eduardo dos Santos, had awarded several contracts to Eurofinsa and its subsidiaries in Angola.

In 2010, Toledano was investigated by the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office after having allegedly paid some 20 million euros in bribes to secure the award of works and services in Angola for a business amount of more than 300 million euros. The National Court filed the case in 2011 to the astonishment of the Prosecutor's Office, according to sources close to the investigation.

Isabel dos Santos (Baku, 1973) treasures, together with her Congolese husband, Sindika Dokolo, an incalculable fortune of billions of euros in assets spread over 41 countries, where they have created more than 200 companies in recent years, benefiting from the nearly four decades of his father's rule. One of the natural resources that has been most exploited by the corporate framework of the Dos Santos-Dokolo marriage is the extraction and global marketing of an important mineral for Angola: diamonds .

The cabinet of the current president of the African country, Joao Lourenço, affirms that the Dos Santos-Dokolo companies have bought Angolan diamonds worth 2,270 million dollars in the last five years. Government technicians calculate that the net profit in the global market ranges between 28% and 45%. In other words, only in five years would they have earned between 638 and 957 million clean dollars only in the wholesale diamond business , without counting other income they achieve by selling jewelry that 'celebrities' wear such as Sharon Stone, Ivana Trump or Naomi Campbell. This was stated by the Executive of Lourenço to the 36 media associated with the Luanda Leaks investigation, coordinated by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), including 'The Guardian', 'Le Monde', 'Süddeutsche Zeitung' or 'The New York Times'; El Confidencial and La Sexta in Spain.

One of the companies used by the couple to turn preferentially purchased rough diamonds into jewelry is De Grisogono. At the end of 2011, the Dos Santos-Dokolo couple acquired this Swiss company thanks to two loans guaranteed by the Angolan state company Sodiam, one of 45 million dollars of its own funds and another of 120 million. The latter was granted by Banco BIC de Angola, a financial institution owned by Isabel dos Santos. The operation was blessed by a presidential decree from her father. "The State has not received a single dollar" from these loans and from the benefits, says Eugenio Pereira Bravo da Rosa, president of the state-owned diamond company Sodiam, who calculates the damage to Angola at 200 million dollars.

The versatile businessman Mauricio Toledano, treasurer of Real Madrid CF between 1989 and 1994, joined De Grisogono's board of directors in February 2011 when he lent the Swiss firm 2.5 million Swiss francs (about two million euros of that time). Through Riogersa SA, a Eurofinsa merchant, it acquired 30% of De Grisogono's shareholding. At the time, the jewelry company was experiencing solvency problems.

Toledano tells this newspaper that this investment was made because of "the great friendship" that united him with the founder of De Grisogono, the Italian-Lebanese Fawaz Gruosi, who has been his creative director until a year ago. Toledano, in 2011, already had projects underway in Angola through the Angolana de Contruçoes de Proyectos Lda (Sacep), a subsidiary of Eurofinsa.

A few months after the operation of the president of Eurofinsa, in November 2011, the Dos Santos-Dokolo couple took control of De Grisogono. They recapitalized the company through two Maltese companies: Victoria Holding and Victoria Limited. The first was created by Sodiam and Melbourne Investments BV (The Netherlands) to later be controlled by Victoria Limited, owned by Isabel dos Santos.

This business operation served to close the chain of the diamond business from its extraction in the mines of Angola to its commercialization in the form of bracelets, earrings or necklaces. In addition, their investment allowed them to position themselves socially among the cream of the world famous. On the occasion of the Cannes Festival, De Grisogono organizes every May a party full of 'glamour' where the 'celebrities' exhibit their jewels in the middle of the French Riviera. The Swiss firm also dresses actresses who walk the red carpet of the famous French film festival with diamonds.

After the investment of the so-called 'Princess of Africa', Toledano kept his capital. However, the percentage of their participation decreased to 10% due to the injection of money from the wealthy Dos Santos-Dokolo couple. At the end of 2014, Riogersa's shares were integrated into Rheingold International Luxury SL as a result of the restructuring of Eurofinsa's investment in the luxury sector.

The Spanish businessman belonged to De Grisogono's board of directors until November 2015 and abandoned his investment in July 2016. However, company minutes and emails obtained by the Luanda Leaks media show how as early as 2012 Melbourne Investments , from Congolese Sindika Dokolo, took "absolute management control" of the multinational jeweler.

"Our relations with De Grisogono were always from Madrid and through the Luxembourg company [De Grisogono Holding SA], never from Angola," says Mauricio Toledano. In addition, this lawyer graduated from the University of Oxford denies that he has ever met the African couple and emphasizes that they were not members of the board of directors. “I coincided in the shareholding with them for a few years, but at that time Isabel dos Santos had enormous prestige. I won't say which Spanish bank [CaixaBank], but he had a lot of business with her in Portugal and still has them in Angola [Banco de Fomento BFA]”, says Toledano. He also denies having been a partner of Dos Santos in projects in the African country.

Dokolo did not respond to all the questions that El Confidencial and Radio France Internationale (RFI) asked him about Eurofinsa's investment in De Grisogono. The Congolese declined to answer if he personally knew Mauricio Toledano. He limited himself to pointing out that he was not surprised that Spanish businessmen had invested in the jewelery company because "De Grisogono has always been a great business opportunity." Isabel dos Santos, through Ella Carter-Ruck's London law firm, did not respond to questions raised on the matter.

Anti-corruption investigation

10 years ago, the National Court investigated Eurofinsa for the alleged payment of bribes to members of the Government of José Eduardo dos Santos, but the head of the Central Court of Instruction number 1, Judge Santiago Pedraz, ended up filing the case in 2011. Sources close to the case explain that the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office began to investigate the construction company's business in Angola due to a rogatory commission sent by Switzerland in 2010, an investigation that led them to maintain that Eurofinsa and its subsidiaries had bought jewelry, watches with money. and cars to the authorities of the African country in exchange for obtaining public contracts.

For this purpose, Anticorruption examined more than 25 contracts of the company and its subsidiaries in Angola, works that consisted of the construction of highways, the provision of supplies and services related to the country's public television. The sources consulted indicate that some of them exceeded 100 million euros and that the Prosecutor's Office focused on Mauricio Toledano, Gerardo Ruiz and Víctor Ruiz as heads of Eurofinsa, on five ministers of the then Government of Angola and on the son of the president , José Filomeno dos Santos, as beneficiaries of these alleged bribes, and in two alleged figureheads whom he accused of acting as intermediaries.

Eurofinsa controls companies in 32 countries on four continents and has a workforce of more than 5,700 professionals. In Angola, through its subsidiary Angolana de Contruçoes de Proyectos Lda (Sacep), it has executed dozens of projects in sectors such as the construction of public infrastructure, comprehensive water treatment and supply systems, or the commissioning of power stations.

The investigation by the Public Ministry determined that Sacep and other companies linked to Eurofinsa would have paid José Filomeno dos Santos 16.5 million euros to ensure the award of contracts. José Filomeno dos Santos is being tried in Luanda for having transferred 500 million dollars from the Sovereign Fund of Angola to a British bank in September 2017, just as his father left power after 38 years in the presidential palace. The defendant for alleged crimes of embezzlement and money laundering has not responded to questions from the Luanda Leaks media.

The investigation into Eurofinsa lasted a year and two rogatory commissions were carried out in Portugal in an attempt to clarify the operations, investigations that also tried to clarify the purchase of jewelry in Switzerland by some of those investigated. As El Confidencial reported in 2014, the file decreed by Judge Pedraz in 2011 surprised Anticorruption, but he argued in his car that, even if there had been gifts, it was impossible to determine "that they were to get contracts." The sources consulted also affirm that the door to any prospective investigation was closed in it, which did not prevent a year after the file from deducing testimony to the Tax Agency.

Sources from the judiciary and the Public Prosecutor's Office who have dealt with and continue to deal with cases of companies investigated for crimes of corruption in international business transactions affirm that this issue continues to be a duty in the Justice of our country.

Regarding the archive of the investigation into Eurofinsa in Angola, Toledano is blunt: "The Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office did not provide any evidence against me. It acted at the request of the Swiss Prosecutor's Office, which did not even prosecute the case. But here, despite they had evidence, they prosecuted him. It was a time when various international organizations were pressing because it was said that in Spain no one was convicted of international corruption".

The president of Eurofinsa denies any payment of bribes to members of the Dos Santos government and his son in exchange for contract awards. His Sacep company continues to operate in Angola, as confirmed by this newspaper. Among his businesses are the construction of public works or mining activities. But Toledano stresses that since 2012 they have not developed any project in the African country and that Sacep only remains active "to collect debts from the Angolan State."

He explains in turn that he does not know José Filomeno dos Santos. “My investments in Angola were through Banco Quantum, which was directed by the former president of the Bundesbank, Ernest Welteke. He had a dream of developing African countries like Angola. It was a time when it was said that Angola could become the second oil exporting country in the world”, says Toledano.

The Anticorruption proceedings fell in January 2011 in the trial court of which Santiago Pedraz is the head and were archived in the following September.

Donor of the Garzón Foundation

As this medium reported, Eurofinsa was the main Spanish donor to the foundation of former magistrate Baltasar Garzón in 2012 and 2013. His total contribution amounted to 375,000 euros. Among the purposes of the Fibgar Foundation are the defense of the "principles of universal jurisdiction" and "the promotion of justice, the fight against corruption and organized crime."

Mauricio Toledano admits this “one off” donation to Fibgar over the phone. “I am a student of the Nuremberg trials. They were the first great example of what was later called Universal Justice. It is in this context that I meet Garzón. We spoke several times and I told him that I would support him to organize an international conference on Universal Justice”, explains the former secretary general of the Federation of Jewish Communities of Spain. This financial support was forged in the celebration in May 2014 of the International Congress on Universal Jurisdiction and Criminal Justice in Madrid.

A large debt with the Treasury

The Tax Agency drew up acts of disagreement for the payment of corporate tax declared by Eurofinsa and its subsidiaries in the years 2008 to 2010, as reflected in the accounts deposited by the multinational firm in the Mercantile Registry. The debt amounts to 104 million euros. Of that figure, according to an order from the National Court, 66.6 million correspond to debts for non-payment of taxes and 37.4 million, to sanctions imposed by the Treasury.

In 2018, Eurofinsa took the case to court due to its disagreement with the amount of the debt and the fine. No ruling yet, investigation continues. "We do not comment on judicial matters, but this case has nothing to do with the Angola issue," says Toledano.

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