Africa-Press – Angola. The Angolan Attorney General’s Office (PGR) announced the recovery in favor of the State of movable assets, real estate, shareholdings and money in an amount exceeding 1.8 billion dollars (1.6 billion euros), in 2024.
The aforementioned assets and monetary values recovered are the result of actions by the PGR and criminal police bodies within the scope of the fight against corruption and economic-financial crime, indicated the Attorney General of the Republic of Angola, Hélder Pitta Grós.
According to the Public Prosecutor’s Office magistrate, in the area of economic-financial crime, corruption and related crimes, 565 cases were investigated and charges were brought in 202 cases in 2024.
Corruption, embezzlement, tax fraud, drug trafficking, human trafficking, environmental damage, trafficking in precious minerals, smuggling of petroleum products, computer fraud, illegal exploitation of virtual games, illegitimate access to information systems and cryptocurrency mining were the most common types of crimes during this period.
Pitta Grós highlighted that cryptocurrency mining – a practice that has resulted in the seizure of various electronic devices and the arrest of several citizens, especially Asians – is a recent phenomenon that has worried the authorities.
A phenomenon that is “worrying because it is a privileged vehicle for money laundering and causes serious damage to the electricity production and distribution system in our country”, said the PGR in a speech at the solemn opening ceremony of the 2025 Judicial Year.
It also considered that the investigation of economic and financial crime and corruption poses challenges to formal control bodies, especially because their agents take full advantage of information and communication technologies, the mobility of people and capital, financial transactions via internet banking and the existence of financial markets considered tax havens.
“Therefore, the fight is carried out at a national level, but the crimes and their surroundings always have an almost international dimension”, he observed, defending, therefore, “urgency” in the elaboration and approval in the country of a legal regime for electronic evidence in criminal proceedings.
He argued that digital evidence has gradually assumed a leading position in the field of evidentiary law, “not only in the investigation of cybercrime, where it is essential, but especially in so-called traditional crimes, since, today, everything that is done on a physical level leaves a digital footprint”.
Helder Pitta Grós argued, on the other hand, that crime-fighting bodies need Angola to adhere to the Council of Europe Convention on Cybercrime (Budapest Convention), “an indispensable instrument not only in the fight against cybercrime, but also in the acquisition of electronic evidence for most processes”.
Regarding the challenges facing the Angolan justice system, the Attorney General believes that the country needs to improve the quality of its justice system, which implies speed, efficiency, modernization, commitment and appreciation of civil servants. He also expressed concern about the violation of children’s rights, especially the evasion of paternity rights, and of other vulnerable groups in society, admitting that the modernization of judicial services will significantly contribute to improving the processing and speed of legal proceedings.
The president of the Superior Council of the Judiciary of the Public Prosecutor’s Office of Angola also said he was concerned about the increase in cases of minors in conflict with the law, when the country does not have a single specialized internment and re-education center.
“It is our obligation to call for the recovery and functionality of the center in Zango (degraded and inoperative) and the construction of others throughout the country, so that tomorrow we do not face the effect of increased crime”, concluded Pitta Grós.
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