Monday, 21 March 2011 14:36   

http://www.newsroompanama.com/panama/2524-money-laundering-investigation-of-former-president-expands.html

Former president Ernesto Perez Balladares could be facing a second criminal investigation, into money laundering.

 This time the case is linked to alleged irregularities in a bank account in the Bahamas, which was used to move over $176 million between May 2009 and June 2010.

The information is available says La Prensa. inn the enlargement of the terms of the current case in which Balladares is awaiting trial for money laundering, sent to the courts February 28  by special prosecutor against organized crime, Marcelino Aguilar The preliminary hearing is scheduled for April 11.

Aguilar is seeking to prosecute the former president and 11 others who could not justify the amount of money they received from Shelf Holding Inc, and from Lucky Games, a company that benefited from a direct grant to operate slot machine halls during the Pérez Balladares government (1994-1999).

The prosecutor asked the Ninth Criminal Court to send copies of the file to the Public Ministry and to be allowed to advance the latest research, after the discovery of two checks of society Shelf Holding Inc., which Perez Balladares had authorized with his signature.

These checks, for amounts of $ 175,000 and $ 45,000, were deposited in a bank account in the  Bahamas, August 2, 2005 and December 26, 2006, respectively, and were yo the  account holder Seaside Foundation.

During the court-ordered extension Diego Fernandez, in November 2010, requested the prosecution to take evidence under oath from a group of people, including relatives of the former president, who received and processed checks  of Shelf Holding Inc. After carrying out the measures ordered by the court, in late December 2010, then prosecutor and now Attorney's General, Jose Ayu Prado, followed the paper trail to determine the relationship of the two checks to Shelf Holding Inc.

Documentation was received by the Special Prosecutor's Office Organized Crime on  January 31 2011.

The new evidence showed bank deposits $176,961,057 and and disbursements of $176,962,091, between May 4, 2009 and June 30, 2010 (when Balladares was being investigated for money laundering).

Because the Ninth Criminal Court had already ordered the extension of the investigation when new information came to the prosecutors, the findings were not included in the file submitted on 28 February 28, hence the request for a new process.

The prosecutor Aguilar is trying  to determine when and who created Seaside Foundation. It also seeks to clarify the reasons why the two checks Shelf Holding Inc. appear to be linked to that account, and  to determine know who signed the papers.

And the whereabouts  of more than $ 176 million in the Bahamas account, which was cleaned in 13 months.

 Shelf Holding Inc. was registered with the Public Registry on June 26, 2003, and although the former president Ernesto Perez Balladares has never been a member of its board, the Public Ministry's investigations determined that has signature authority to dispose of the funds deposited in two bank accounts on behalf of society, through accounts which handled more than $20 million.

Unjustifiable  money is the essence of the case against the former president.

In the management of these accounts appear, the former president's former private secretary Eyda Achon Quijada, and two workers, Humberto González  and Vicente Calderón de la Barrera.

The former president says he did not own th ecorporation, but in turn it was been as a "family company", in which the deposits were allegedly "for the increase in family assets and payment of dividends from investments" .

In the statement given to the Special Prosecutor's Organized Crime concerning the type of internal control that existed in this society, Perez Balladares said that "as Shelf Holding Inc. is a company receiving taxable income, had no internal accounting, with the exception of bank reconciliations."

However, Henry Mong Woo, one of the employees of the companies under investigation and who also appears as part of the group of defendants in the case, when questioned on the same subject contradicted the former president and chief saying Shelf Holding Inc. and World JewelsSA, another of the companies under investigation, did have accounting records in official books. There were no formal documents of loans made between Perez Balladares, families and relatives, he said.

Meanwhile, a private company dedicated to the accounts prepared a report to the prosecutor, upon request of the defense of the former president.

In that report, the company said accounting Shelf Holding Inc. was in order and that the $ 5.3 million he received from World Jewels, between 2003 and 2009, were part of accounts receivable or payable between companies covering personal matters, loans, investments and other business related to the family of the former ruler.