The protagonist of a trip without restraint toward the precipice
MADRID Cornered by justice, suspected of committing serious crimes of corruption, Rodrigo Rato first lost its prestige after his old political friends and now also access to the fortune he amassed over decades at the top of power.
The Spanish court ordered last night to block all accounts, deposits, mutual funds and any financial product on behalf of former deputy prime minister and former director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), as part of a case by washing Money, tax evasion and concealment of assets.
The measure, considered one of the most extreme that can dictate into a file like this, answers that researchers discovered the existence of a real plot companies on behalf of relatives of Rato, located abroad, including millions of euros they moved in recent months, as revealed judicial sources.
Rato, an emblematic figure of the Popular Party (PP), was arrested yesterday for eight hours while police raided his home in Madrid and professional office. He was released at dawn yesterday. In the coming days should testify as a defendant and the judge involved, Enrique de la Hoz, determine whether it remains free while the case is based. Could fit you up to 15 years in prison according to the crimes for which he investigates.
“I do not have companies in tax or outside the EU havens,” the former official said yesterday told the newspaper El Country, at the end of a new judicial requisition at home. “Working with an attorney who is one of their offices in Virgin Islands, but with him I have a company in the UK,” he added.
The court suspects is aimed at your shadow is behind a network of companies through which circulated funds to hide his fortune, with intent to avoid payment of the multimillion-dollar bond that is required in a case of fraud in the management of the bank Bankia. There is evidence in the complaint that trafficked exchange for 12 million euros in operations in Switzerland (where he traveled three times so far this year), Gibraltar, Ireland, Luxembourg and the Netherlands, the sources said.
Rato is charged for nine months for having falsified the accounts of Bankia in 2011 before its IPO, which resulted in a catastrophic loss to 350,000 shareholders who invested their savings in the operation. The following year the company -private largest bank of the country collapsed and the government of Mariano Rajoy had to manage a European bailout to avoid bankruptcy of the Spanish economy.
The current leadership of Bankia requires him to provide 133 million euros to 800 million bond that justice will set the entity to cover any damages to the victims.
The new case was initiated after the former official was welcomed a tax amnesty driven by Rajoy three years ago, from which were allowed to regularize undeclared money in exchange for a payment of 10% to the Treasury. But the Tax Office found serious inconsistencies in the statements of Rato and reported.
The case shocked to Spain and shakes Rajoy in an election year. Rato was Minister of Economy in the entire management of José María Aznar, reached the highest position for a Spanish in an international organization and had a decisive influence on the PP for 20 years.
The government tried every possible ways detached from it and show as a positive fact that the investigation has progressed. “The institutions are working, regardless of party,” the vice president said yesterday Soraya Saenz de Santamaria. Limited the case to a “private matter” because Rato “no longer holds public office,” and last year suspended his membership in the party.
For most analysts, former director of the IMF between 2004 and 2007 is the scapegoat of PP, accused of not doing everything necessary to fight corruption angers the Spaniards.
Especially considering that the Conservatives are losing support in the polls as municipal and regional elections of May 24 and general year-end approach.
“The PP is finding that corruption is doing far more damage than I thought and did not will be able to recover helpful only speech recovery and has seen Rato an opportunity, “said political scientist Anton Losada, saying it was already” burned and have decided to make it an example. “
A collapse in chapters
The collapse of the Minister “Spanish miracle” occurred in chapters. The case for the IPO of Bankia him out of politics altogether. But the most shocking blow was the parallel investigation in which it was revealed that the bank crisis -in full dealt to their managers Bankia corporate cards that were used for personal and lavish spending without accounting to the treasury.
Rato had one, that fattened the salary of 2.4 million euros a year he had set. The social indignation made him a symbol of corruption.
The look of justice is now in determining the amount and fate of his fortune. Rato is heir to a powerful industrialist Asturian which he was imprisoned for tax evasion during the Franco regime and won huge amounts for their political and business career.
As director of the IMF claimed 1.5 million euros over three years , then worked as a consultant to various financial institutions (only the Lazard bank paid eight million between 2008 and 2010) and its management in Bankia earned him nearly seven million more.
All that “black money” and part of the unknown quantities that had hidden the Treasury are now in the hands of justice, which forbade any movement.
The judge also asked the group of banks in Spain to send him within three days extracts with historical activity accounts that had or had Rato. .
In Argentina, the case can not be applied
- The case of former IMF chief Rodrigo Rato may not apply to Argentina since the bleaching done in the country may not allow officials or former public servants from joining. So reminded the nation two lawyers specialists in tax law, Emilio Cornejo Costas, the study Lisicki, Litvin & amp; Associates, and Diego Fraga, Fraga-Valentini holder.
- “Here money is not admitted to or former officials, which someone in a similar situation Rato could not be accepted,” Fraga said.
- Cornejo Costas added that “all amnesties or bleaches in Argentina exclude public officials, as well as all that money from money laundering, for example, from corruption.”
- “Actually, the only money that can be bleached by these schemes regularization is from evasion,” he added.
- In the event that Rato was not former official, Fraga said, “in Argentina also what could pursue the crimes for which he is accused in Spain if it were accepted to a bleaching”.
From the Editor: what it means For more than many suspect that the PP gave Rato to give the image of commitment to the fight. against corruption, his fall subtracted helpful to the government.
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