Iván Clare and West Valdés, in the plot of the Spanish Gürtel case

The liquidator of the brokerage firm Financial Pacific, José Ángel Hidrogo, seems to have found the link between Financial Pacific and the major corruption scandal in Spain. He suspects that Luis Bárcenas Gutiérrez, treasurer of the people’s Party of Spain and protagonist of the Gürtel case, has benefitted illicitly through the Financial Pacific account located in the Leumi bank with the headquarters in Switzerland.

That’s how it can be seen in the formal petition of the authenticity copies made by Hidrogo to the Central Court of Instruction No. 5 in Madrid, Spain, in charge of the judge José de la Mata, who has been cause of the Gürtel case.

The main deed that motivated the liquidator to link Bárcenas with Financial Pacific is based on a transference of 25 thousand euros executed on July 27, 2011 from the Uruguayan society Tesedul, S.A., from the Discount Bank Latin America located in Paraguay, in favor of the account that the Panamanian brokerage firm possessed in Leumi Bank, in Switzerland, established in the description of the transference as ‘Caye International Bank Ltd, account 100460 to benefit the account of ATCO International’.

‘That means -as read in the request made by the liquidator to the Madrid Court- that the possibility exists that the former administrators of Financial Pacific, specifically Iván Clare and West Valdés (both Panamanian), who were the ones to open and had a firm in the account of Financial PAcific in Switzerland’s Leumi Bank, are involved and were accomplices in the crimes of money laundering, financial corruption and other related crimes under investigation and being processed in the Gürtel case.

In that case, the man in charge of the forceful liquidation of the brokerage firm Financial Pacific would find another link from the multiple financial strategies attributed to Bárcenas to hide the gifts that, it seems, were received by the people’s Party associated to public tenders, practice whereby stated by the current government of Spain, lead by Mariano Rajoy.

THE LINKS

The first step of the liquidator José Ángel Hidrogo was to solicit to the Central Court of Instruction No. 5 Madrid copies of the process that followed by Francisco Correa Sánchez, leader of the corruption plot, whose last name (in German) gives name to the judicial investigation, with the purpose of intervening a penal investigation in the Public Ministry of Panama, for the irregularities identified in Spain, since it’s probable that some Panamanians related to the brokerage firm Financial Pacific are involved in the crimes of money laundering and corruption identified by the Spanish authorities.

Hidrogo continues, likewise, the Spanish judicial report attributed to transfers of 970 thousand euros of the accounts from Correa to Luis Bárcenas. A part of that money would’ve been given to the former leader after the rigged award of public works in Castilla and León. In that direction, the Central Court of Madrid sent in March of 2009 an application to the Swiss authorities that includes an extension dated in July of 2014, where it is reported with the suspicion that part of the amounts that were used to ‘bribe’ Luis Bárcenas would’ve been transferred to the Swiss bank accounts, of that country.

Tesedul is one of the key companies in the anonymous societies created in five countries, among them Panama, that Bárcenas was able to use to launder money, crime for which he is being processed, in addition to tax evasion and fraud, among others.

According to the Spanish prosecutors who hold the case, Correa hatched an ample network of societies that allowed illicit benefits in Spain through contracts with public administration. Correa is identified as the chief of the corporate network routed to hide and distribute the money associated with these awards.

Hidrogo’s petition was received on the past June 22 in the Spanish Court being mentioned. The liquidator has an obligation to make the Panamanian authorities aware of the possible crimes incurred by the former directors of Financial Pacific by the irregular handling of the brokerage,now intervened.

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A COMPANY WITH A CLEAR PURPOSE

Movements of the account Tesedul, S.A.

Between 2000 and 2005, according to reasoning from the Court, Luis Bárcenas received curious sums linked to public awards which were submitted to the open accounts of Lombard ]]Odier Barier Hentsch and LGT in Geneva. These accounts opened with their own name or the company’s name Sinequanon, or the Uruguayan society Tesedul, S.A.

In 2009, when Bárcenas found out about the investigation that the authorities held against him, the former treasurer of the current Spanish Government’s party transferred funds of those accounts with the purpose of untying his illicit origin. In this same date, he appoints Iván Yáñez for the transference of Swiss money, deeds for which he was imputed.

In June 2014, the judge Pablo Ruz solicited with urgency to Switzerland information about two accounts supposedly linked to Luis Bárcenas. This is under investigation for the occultation of illicit funds of the former treasurer of the people’s Party, now known as the Gürtel scandal.

This request Ruz solicited to Hyposwiss Privatbank AG information relating to the account ‘Agroelec Importadora y Exportadora Aliron’ with a branch in Montevideo, Uruguay, who transferred almost $15 thousand to the society Tesedul, S.A. A petition was also sent to the headquarters to the Swiss bank Leumi where the Financial Pacific account is, which was benefited by a Tesedul transfer of 25 thousand euros.

According to the proceedings of the inquiry of the Spanish Court, Tesedul was was an account holder in Discount Bank from 2009 to 2013, integrated by a current account in pesos, another current account in euros, another in dollars and a deposit in North American currency. The request to open the account was done by the Argentinian government and supposed figurehead Luis Adolfo Álvarez Pereyra as president of Tesedul, who in 2009 was transferred the total of the actions of the firm. Later, he was linked with the powerful Edgar Patricio Bel Sardoy, also an Argentinian lawyer.

From these accounts, 23 transfers were made to the exterior to diverse companies in 2011 after receiving an injection of $920 thousand.

On the other hand, the Sinequanon society was created by the firm Icaza, González, Ruiz and Alemán (IGRA) on June 2005 and four years later he dissolved.

Under this name, Sinequanon, Bárcenas opened his bank accounts in Switzerland, where he accumulated more than 22 million euros, according to Spanish reports.

On February 2013, the Spanish authorities listened to Tesedul, S.A. as another one of the firms of the Bárcenas network. The names that appeared as owners of the same, Daniel Ángel Pérez Blanco and Cristina González Silvestri, Bárcenas figureheads, have already been involved in several judicial investigations in Argentina and other countries in South America for supposed relationship with the creation of ‘paper companies’ or anonymous societies to hide black money and irregular commissions receivable. The Uruguayan couple has also been implied in the dark case of arms trafficking which he led to dock the president of Argentina, Carlso Menem.

Nonetheless, in 2013, a Bárcenas figurehead was in charge of transferring and ‘emptying’ the accounts of Bárcenas located in Uruguay.

Related Article: Iván Clare y West Valdés, en la trama del caso español Gürtel