Early Life
Alves dos Reis was a child of a humble family; his father was a financially troubled undertaker who ended up being declared insolvent. Reis wanted to study engineering. He started his degree but quit in the first year to marry Maria Luísa Jacobetti de Azevedo, sister of Octávio Jacobetti de Azevedo and daughter of ... de Azevedo and Beatriz ..., in August 1916. In 1916 he decided to emigrate to Portuguese Angola which, at the time, was a Portuguese colony, to try to make a fortune and escape the humiliations from his wife's family, due to their differences in social status.
Reis forged himself a diploma of engineering, supposedly from Oxford University, although in reality it was from a school which didn't exist: the "Polytechnic School of Engineering". According to the diploma, he had studied engineering sciences, geology, geometry, physics, metallurgy, pure mathematics, paleography, electric and mechanical engineering, applied mechanics and physics. He started as a public employee in the public sewers constructions and repairs. With an uncovered cheque, he bought the major part of the stocks of the Transafrican Railways of Angola, in Moçâmedes. He became rich and gained credit.
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