A 1,600-Page Indictment Traces €2.5 Billion of Congolese Public Works to Ostriches, Ponies and a Trump Tower Apartment

A former football agent who once represented Luis Figo and who was dismissed by Benfica in the early 2000s is now the central figure in a 1,600-page indictment describing how 2.5 billion euros of public works in a small central African petro-state were allegedly bought with percentages, private jets and animals.

The case is Operation Rota do Atlantico, and the Ministerio Publico's DCIAP unit charged nine defendants in December 2025. Over the weekend Observador published a reconstruction of the full charging decision, and the timing matters: the window for the defendants to file their contestations and request the opening of the instruction phase closes on 3 October. Only one has filed so far.

What the prosecutors say happened

Jose Veiga, a former emigrant in Luxembourg and fluent in French, turned to francophone Africa after his player-agency business collapsed. In Congo-Brazzaville, a modest oil producer ruled by Denis Sassou Nguesso for more than four decades, he became known as "Monsieur Afrique" and acted for the Brazilian group Asperbras. The proximity to the presidential family, according to the DCIAP, converted into a portfolio of public contracts worth more than 2.5 billion euros: factories, hospitals, roads and a water programme.

The alleged price was a share of each contract. Prosecutors say Denis Christel Sassou Nguesso, the president's son, and Gilbert Ondongo, then finance minister, received roughly 76.7 million euros in illicit advantages between them. Both were charged only with money laundering, not passive corruption, because Portugal lacks territorial competence over the underlying acts.

The evidence includes notes Veiga is said to have written on Asperbras letterhead splitting an industrial-zone project into percentages: 20 percent for the Brazilian businessman, 20 percent for himself, 20 percent for the president, and 15 percent each for the president's son and daughter. To move the money without alerting banks, the indictment says the Congolese political elite were reduced to three letters, C, D and G, behind company groups built during 2013 in Cyprus, Cabo Verde, Estonia and Spain.

Ostriches, ponies and a bank in Benin

The stranger items in the file are the alleged non-cash benefits: ostriches and ponies flown from the Tires aerodrome to a presidential ranch by private jet, luxury cars, property at Quinta da Marinha in Cascais, and an apartment in Trump Tower in New York for the president's daughter. Prosecutors say at least 134,804,064 euros and 47,843,208.90 dollars entered Veiga's own asset sphere, more than 180 million euros in total.

He also wanted to be a banker. The Bank of Portugal blocked his attempt to buy Banco Internacional de Cabo Verde from the Novo Banco perimeter, and the Cabo Verdean regulator refused a new licence. He eventually chaired a bank in Benin. Contacted by Observador, Veiga did not reply. His associate Paulo Santana Lopes denied any corruption, saying he was paid for legitimate work on hospitals and industrial zones.

Why the calendar is the story

The investigation has run for more than ten years, changed prosecutors repeatedly and depended on judicial cooperation with Switzerland, the United States and Congo. Prosecutors have asked for the case against the Congolese officials to be separated precisely because of prescription risk. With the instruction phase yet to begin and the underlying facts dating to 2007 to 2013, a trial is years away.

What this means for expats

• Portuguese courts are slow by design and by accident: the same pattern shaped the Socrates prosecution, and Portugal has defended that record in Strasbourg.
• The unit doing this work is thin: DCIAP lost 12 of its 44 prosecutors in under three years, which is part of why files like this drift.
• Term time restarts now: judicial holidays end on Tuesday, so procedural clocks across the system start running again.