Sindika Dokolo, the husband of Isabel dos Santos, billionaire daughter of Angola’s former president, has died, his family announced Friday. He died Thursday in Dubai according to a notice posted on Twitter by the family. It did not state the cause of death. Dokolo was 48.
“The Dokolo family, his wife, children, mother, brother, and sisters have the deepest sorrow and immense sadness to announce the passing of Sindika Dokolo, which occurred on October 29, 2020, in Dubai,” the tweet said. Media reports in the neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo, of which Dokolo was a citizen, said he had died in a diving accident.
Dokolo was also the son of the businessman Augustin Dokolo Sanu, from whom he inherited his fortune after his death in 2001. Alongside his wife, Hanne Kruse, a Danish national he married in 1968, the Mukongo patriarch built one of the largest economic empires – including his crown jewel, the Bank of Kinshasa – in Zaire under Mobutu Sese Seko’s rule.
Dokolo grew up between Africa and Europe. Intelligent and ambitious, he made a career and fortune alongside his wife Isabel in various sectors, including oil, diamonds (through De Grisogono), retail, cement, and telecommunications. An art collector, he advocated for repatriating looted artworks to African museums.
Dokolo, a business tycoon and art collector, became entangled along with his wife in an anti-corruption investigation launched after her father, Jose Eduardo dos Santos, left office in 2017. Dokolo’s wife had recently fallen into the crosshairs of courts in Angola and Portugal, where the couple’s assets, estimated at several billions of dollars, are frozen.
