Africa-Press – Angola. Wilson da Costa, former representative of the North American company General Electric (GE) in Angola, was sentenced by a Federal Court in New York to seven years in prison and three years of probation.
This sentence conforms to the jury’s decision of November 18, 2024, finding him guilty of the crimes of document forgery and identity theft.
The court also decided to seize five million dollars from Wilson da Costa and also imposed a fine of 100 thousand dollars. The sentence was handed down this Thursday, March 27. Wilson da Costa used, among others, the names Watson Bisong, Wilson Dakosta and Watson Bisong Dacosta.
The former GE representative in Angola was accused by the US Justice Department of using falsified documents to convince the government of João Lourenço to terminate contracts with another company, the Portuguese Aenergy of Ricardo Leitão Machado in an energy and water project worth 1.1 billion dollars.
The US justice system argued that Wilson da Costa’s illicit practices in Angola, which included falsifying documents, benefited GE. As Negócios reported in 2023, in a parallel process, GE reached an agreement with Aenergy for the latter to drop the lawsuits it had filed against the multinational.
Aenergy was initially contracted to build and operate power plants in Angola using a $1.1 billion credit line from GE, but the deal fell through in 2019 after the Angolan government accused the company of buying more turbines than authorized.
Aenergy alleged that GE had manipulated turbine sales to boost profits and then misled Angolan authorities to sideline Aenergy from the projects.
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