Three of the world’s largest consulting firms received tens of millions of dollars in payments from an obscure firm in Dubai to help restructure Angola’s corruption-ridden oil sector, according to documents that reveal new details about suspicious money flows described in the globe-spanning Luanda Leaks investigation.

The Dubai firm, Matter Business Solutions, forwarded $31.2 million to Boston Consulting Group, $21.4 to PwC and $15.4 million to McKinsey as part of a 2017 project to modernize Sonangol, Angola’s state-owned oil company, according to bank statements and other documents seen by the Portuguese news outlets Expresso and SIC.

Billionaire Isabel dos Santos, the daughter of Angola’s long-time autocratic ruler, was Sonangol’s chief executive at the time of the payments. Last year, as part of Luanda Leaks, journalists revealed that the Dubai company was owned by a personal friend of dos Santos. The new documents provide a fuller picture of how Western advisors profited from the transfers, which are now under investigation in Angola.

Expresso and SIC were central members of Luanda Leaks, which revealed how secretive deals turned dos Santos into a billionaire and globetrotting bigwig under the presidency of her authoritarian father.

PwC and Boston Consulting were deeply enmeshed in dos Santos’ business affairs, the reporting showed. They retained those relationships long after many Western banks had cut her off amid questions about the source of her wealth. Boston Consulting helped run a failing jewelry business acquired with Angolan money; PwC suggested ways to avoid Angolan taxes and its accountants disregarded red flags about money movements between dos Santos entities that experts say should have raised alarms.

The Sonangol payments, by way of the Dubai shell company, highlight ongoing concerns about lax due diligence standards by consulting giants and light-touch regulations that allow foreign advisors to amass huge profits — no matter the money’s origin.

“Consulting firms, like other private sector players, should identify who owns the entities they work with,” said Alexandra Gillies, an expert on corruption in the oil sector with the Natural Resources Governance Institute. “In this case, the owner was not only a close associate of a senior public official, but that official had a clear ability to influence the business in question, creating a conflict of interest. Those are some pretty major red flags for firms of this caliber to ignore.”

Responding to the new documents, PwC’s Lisbon office told Expresso that the company ended its relationship with companies linked to dos Santos in January 2020. Two Lisbon-based employees were dismissed following a “comprehensive internal investigation,” it said.

McKinsey told Expresso that it made “internal inquiries” after the Luanda Leaks investigation but “did not detect any irregularity on the part of the team involved.” McKinsey said that it provided services to institutions, not individuals. Its relationship with Sonangol predated dos Santos’ time as chair, the company said.

BCG said it was “not appropriate” to comment given ongoing “investigations regarding allegations against Isabel dos Santos.”

Millions go to friends’ consulting firms

The new financial records reveal that Sonangol first transferred funds to Matter Business Solutions’ bank account at NBD Emirates in Dubai. Funds were then sent to banks in Portugal and Spain for PwC, Boston Consulting Group and McKinsey, Expresso reported. Matter’s shareholder was Paula Cristina Fidalgo Carvalho das Neves Oliveira, a close ally of dos Santos.

Other lucrative wires from Sonangol to Matter landed in the bank accounts of a law firm and lesser-known consultancy companies, including one partly owned by the wife of dos Santos’ personal financial advisor, the news organizations reported. The payments were for services provided by the firms as part of a dos Santos-led restructuring of Sonangol, though it isn’t clear what services the firms provided in exchange.