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The case, initially reported by journalist and activist Rafael Marques, led Sindika Dokolo to react, in an interview with Jornal de Negócios, accusing Marques of being at the service of an “ideological agenda” and emphasizing that “in a democratic country, the Law is dictated by a judge. “So, for Sindika, there was no history there, just a legitimate business of a capitalist who used all the instruments at his disposal.
“It makes a lot of sense from a strategic point of view to want to extend its presence from the exploration phase to the international luxury market, thus proceeding to a vertical integration of the entire value chain”, thus justifying to Business its entry into the sector of the jewelry. “Let me remind you that Cartier belongs to a South African. I don’t see, therefore, what is surprising when Angolan investors follow the same successful strategy, ”he added. Again he resorted to the strategy of comparing his action with that of businessmen in capitalist democracies, although the doubts did not refer to the commitment to the sector, but to the connection with Sodiam.
In June 2020, in an interview with the João2Pontos program on the Angolan radio MFM, Sindika explained its point of view again, clarifying that the granting of concession licenses for the diamond sector to Angolan citizens emerged as a strategy of the government of Two saints. to counteract the weight of South Africans: “There was always the risk of a strategy where the [sul-africana] The Bears – or another market operator, I am not doing an intentional process – could buy a large part of the Catoca production [mina angolana, a quarta maior do mundo], make a storage unsold in the market and then suddenly flooding the market with this production and take the project [angolano] ruined. “The strategy of the Angolan presidency, by granting licenses to individuals like Isabel and Sindika, would therefore be a way of benefiting Angolan interests, in Dokolo’s opinion.
Once again, the inspiration may have come from Sindika Dokolo’s father. In 1985, when Mobutu liberalized the diamond sector in Zaire, Augustin Dokolo acquired control of a mining company operating in Kivu, Democratic Republic of Congo, changing its name to Compagnie D’Exploitation de MINES, or CODEMINES. According to the family’s own website, CODEMINES explored gold and diamonds, producing up to 400 kilograms of minerals per month.
According to expert Christian Dietrich, the liberalization of this market in Zaire contributed to the creation of a “casino economy” in the Congo, based solely “on the dream of winning large amounts of money in a very short period of time”. “Artisanal diamond miners, excavation, lived this dream. For example, someone’s uncle could earn $ 5,000 and buy a used car, and that maintains the dream of finding instant wealth. In reality, those who dig make very little money, but continue to work. Those who benefit the most are foreign intermediaries and exporters ”.
The same is true in the diamond market in Angola. In 2001, Dietrich explained to a Belgian Senate commission that it is practically impossible to link specific diamonds to the mines from which they were mined, thus distancing, for example, De Grisogono from the mines that supply it and therefore also drive Sindika away. “This is not like oil. Shell has problems in Nigeria and then Shell is boycotted. That is easy. Now imagine that the diamonds come from a mine in Angola and the human rights of employees are not respected or a river is polluted. These diamonds that come to Antwerp for example are divided into various types of category and then sold to different companies and these are the companies that refine them. There is no direct link between a mine and a store. “
It is not possible to know for sure how much Sindika Dokolo benefited By Grisogono and, more than with the sale of diamonds, with the exploration of diamonds. Swiss jewelry was noted for its fancy parties in Cannes, for celebrities like Sharon Stone who wore its jewelry, and for marketing like “404”. The “world’s largest diamond”, at 404 carats (rough), is said to have been found in a mine in Angola. on February 4, 2016, when it was the 54th anniversary of the beginning of the armed struggle for independence in the country, and it belonged, no less, to De Grisogono.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gu5R6xMbo1E
In 2019, Fawaz Gruosi left the company and left everything that was left to Sindika Dokolo, who already controlled De Grisogono through a series of holdings and complex financial engineering. It was a company, Nemesis, which operated in a offshore in Dubai. But, with the arrival of João Lourenço to power, everything got complicated. In 2017, Sodiam issued a statement explaining that “Sodiam EP’s participation in Victoria Holding Limited [detida por Sindika Dokolo], and indirectly in the ‘De Grisogono’ group, since its creation in 2011, it has generated costs exclusively for Sodiam, both for the bank financing that it contracted and for the negative results that the group has systematically presented, as a result of a management model adopted that Sodiam EP is and has always been alien ”. For this reason, the public company left the association with participation of the Union.
More recently, in an interview with SIC about the Luanda leaks, the company’s president, Bravo da Rosa, was adamant: “Since 2011/2012, when the participation of Sodiam in this business was decided, the State has not benefited from a single dollar”, he told SIC. However, before this report was published, Sindika anticipated it. On December 19, she was brought before the London Arbitration Court with a lawsuit against Sodiam, accusing her of “to hack and theft of documents ”, in addition to“ having destroyed the economic value ”of the company by publicly announcing its departure in 2017.“ If you want to sell your car and in a newspaper ad you write that it is a car that does not work, that always gives It is a problem that you do not have to go to the workshop every day, obviously you cannot sell. In other words, it was deliberately a destruction of value, ”he said, to justify the compensation claim, in an interview with the Lusa agency.
Regarding the original agreement with Sodiam, Sindika maintained that there was no reason for the public diamond to break with it: “It is not corruption when there is a business agreement. Corruption occurs when a member of the Government receives payments to privilege one or another party and no one said or established that we received public funds that were not properly and legally registered ”, he summarized. Although the process at the London Arbitration Tribunal is still ongoing, without Sodiam’s involvement and with the impact of the Luanda escapes, De Grisgono could not be successful. He would end up filing for bankruptcy as early as 2020.
Luanda leaks. De Grisogono, the jewelry company of Isabel dos Santos’ husband, announced that it had filed for bankruptcy
They were the effects of what Sindika Dokolo called “a political persecution” for the Dos Santos family, moved by João Lourenço. Something that was not surprising in the eyes of the Congolese, who considered that his own family in Zaire was the target of another persecution. According to the site of the family, the success of CODEMINES owned by Augustin Dokolo “may have been the reason that led to the illegal expropriation measures taken by the Mobutu regime against Dokolo”. “Mobutu’s executioners probably convinced him that Dokolo was becoming a threat due to his growing financial and strategic power across the country,” it reads. The statement sounds familiar.
“There are those who say” that “Dokolo [pai] he was so successful in business that he wanted to get into politics. ” The one who tells the Observer is Marius Muhunga, a Congolese journalist. On the family’s website, however, this version is denied, saying that Agustín had several invitations to enter politics and rejected all of them. And lo and behold, we come across another point in Dokolo pai’s biography that seems to reflect the path of his son.
Sindika Dokolo guaranteed that she had no desire to become a politician. But, in addition to his clearly politicized discourse on art, since at least 2017, the Congolese has been involved in the politics of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, from civil society. An attitude that was no less if we take into account the close ties between the Congo and Angola, border countries where the gigantic size of the DRC does not correspond to the more subordinate position it has had in relation to Luanda.
It all started on Twitter. Until then, always discreet when it came to matters of his country, the businessman began to openly criticize President Joseph Kabila, the same one who had been invited to his wedding with Isabel dos Santos. The issue was his refusal to leave power when his term ended. In June 2017, Sindika dared to criticize outright, in an interview with Reuters, where it said that the Congo’s ability to destabilize the region is “underestimated” and where it said it was “playing with matches near a barrel of explosives.” .
Erik Kennes, a specialist professor in the Democratic Republic of the Congo who belonged to the UN mission in the country, recalls that Sindika would never take this action if it were not sure of the interest of the Angolan president, José Eduardo dos Santos, in pressuring Kabila to let it go. “We cannot forget that Dos Santos himself changed position. He was always a great supporter of Laurent Kabila [pai de Joseph Kabila e anterior Presidente] and then he changed his mind ”, he highlights. “It is very difficult to be sure what happened at that level, but, as far as I know, José Eduardo dos Santos was very clear when he said that Kabila Filho had to go. Not for reasons [de defesa] democracy, but to maintain stability on the border. Therefore, the relationship between the two has worsened. And Sindika clearly had the blessing of her father-in-law to get involved in this. “
