Portugal’s Attorney General has launched a probe into possible corruption involving Portuguese construction firm Zagope and the eldest son of Equatorial Guinea’s longtime dictator, following an exposé by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and its media partners.

ICIJ’s investigation, based on a trove of leaked documents obtained by Portugal’s Expresso newspaper, revealed that between 2009 and 2012 Zagope was awarded nearly $1.2 billion in government contracts in the tiny central African petrostate.

Zagope later funneled more than $86 million into a company owned by the president’s son and anointed successor, Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue, known as Teodorin.

The payments to the company, Somagui, which French prosecutors described as “an empty shell used solely to channel public money,” continued until at least 2018, the documents showed.

A spokesperson for Portugal’s Attorney General confirmed “the existence of an investigation, subject to judicial secrecy” to ICIJ’s partner Expresso via email on Wednesday, but did not provide further details.

Zagope’s parent company, Andrade Gutierrez, told Expresso that the case was “expected” and “will be important to clarify the facts already stated by the company in earlier articles on the matter.”

  • Recommended reading

The Portuguese investigation is not the first time Teodrin, who has served under his father as Equatorial Guinea’s vice president since 2016, has caught the attention of international authorities.

In a settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice in 2014, Teodorin agreed to forfeit more than $30 million worth of assets allegedly derived from the proceeds of corruption.

In 2017, a decade-long legal battle culminated in a French court handing him a three-year suspended sentence and a $35 million fine for embezzlement. His French assets, valued at over $178 million, were also seized, including an apartment block on Paris’ prestigious Avenue Foch, which connects to the Arc de Triomphe.

The property, worth over $100 million according to media reports, is at the center of an ongoing legal dispute between Equatorial Guinea and France. Earlier this month, Equatorial Guinea called on the International Court of Justice to intervene in the case, claiming that France was planning to sell the property and that French police had entered it and changed the locks.

Equatorial Guinea’s lawyers reportedly argued that the property was purchased with embezzled funds from that country, and that under a U.N. anti-corruption treaty the seized asset should therefore be returned. They have not said who embezzled the funds.

Equatorial Guinea had previously argued, unsuccessfully, that the property could not be seized as it was part of its diplomatic mission.

Last year, Teodorin was also indicted in Brazil, where Zagope’s parent company, construction giant Andrade Gutierrez, is based. In the ongoing case, Brazilian federal law enforcement accused the president’s son of using laundered funds to buy a luxury apartment, alleging that he unlawfully entered the country with $16 million in cash and luxury goods.