The Public Ministry alleges that new data revealing the Grupo Cartes mega-laundering scheme is incorrect, for which reason charges cannot be made. The prosecution justified itself by saying that they need more time to gather evidence.
After a meeting of the Board of Directors of the Senate, where the Attorney General of the State was present together with the agent of the Public Ministry, Osmar Legal, more guidelines were expected regarding the investigation that would be carried out by the State portfolio regarding to new specifications on the scheme of mega money laundering and associations with the organized crime of Grupo Cartes.
Legal Osmar
The published reports correspond to the Secretariat for the Prevention of Money or Asset Laundering (Seprelad), but the Public Ministry, through the Legal Prosecutor, declared that they will not make accusations and will not take the published elements either because “they do not coincide” in their majority with the fiscal folder in which they are currently working.
“This is in an investigative line and I cannot conclude that there is sufficient evidence for an accusation. We will take an objective time to build a particular fact on the line that we have already drawn. I cannot talk about the details of the investigations because they are intelligence, we are going to draw up the normative criteria and then we will work on that”, Legal remarked at the close of yesterday’s meeting.
Regarding the content of the document, the representative of the Public Ministry assured that he had not yet been able to analyze it carefully, despite acknowledging that they already had this data since May 24. This due to supposed technical problems of the system.
THERE WILL BE NO INVESTIGATION
Enrique Salyn Buzarquis was one of the senators who was at the meeting of the Board of Directors, but before the end of the meeting he left in a daze, declaring it a “total hypocrisy”, stating with indignation that it is not possible that former president Horacio Cartes have international investigations, but no investigations are carried out in your own country.
“Now they are being extremely legalistic, let’s stop fooling ourselves, they don’t want to investigate the head of organized crime and cigarette smuggling. Nothing productive will come out of the meeting,” Buzarquis pointed out.
For his part, the senator for the Hagamos Party, Antonio Apuril, said that the discussion focused on the lack of compliance with the functions of the Prosecutor’s Office due to cuts in its budget.
Tony Apuril
However, the parliamentarian said that an investigation commission on money laundering is going to be formed and in the case of not observing investigative progress by the Public Ministry, they will monitor the institution and also exert pressure on it.
On the other hand, the senator for the Guasu Front, Jorge Querey, pointed out that he really hopes that the tax investigations will be developed around published reports, but taking into account the lack of productivity of the meeting held, he has few expectations about possible comprehensive analysis. “If you don’t start an investigation, the Prosecutor’s Office will commit a serious omission or complicity,” he said.
Jorge Querey
CONTRADICTIONS
In communication with Radio Monumental, the manager of Tabacalera de Este (Tabesa), stressed that it is more profitable for Tabesa to lend money to its companies, but that these are occasional activities that are allowed. In fact, regarding the subject, he said that he personally hired Óscar Boidanich to carry out the “compliance manual”; this after he left his position as head of Seprelad.
Boidanich’s hiring was considered a case of revolving door, which is constant in the business group; the former president of the Central Bank, of Petropar, the former Minister of Finance, among others, were also part of the custom.
Boidanich was a Minister during the Cartes government and is criticized for having delayed the delivery to the Prosecutor’s Office of the report on Darío Messer, convicted in Brazil for the Lava Jato case.
MORE DATA OF THE REPORT
Within the framework of the TURF and A Ultranza Py operations, these main links were found regarding criminal organizations with Tabesa and Banco Basa:
– Marcus Vinicius Espindola: The most wanted drug trafficker in Brazil arrested is the husband of one of Tabesa’s partners, Jussara Cabral, who also has properties and businesses in Brazil and transactions with other Cartes firms such as Bebidas del Paraguay.
– Lindomar Reges Furtado: in a raid in the gated community of Parana Country Club, the drug trafficker fled in a truck that, when consulting the Vehicle Records, is in the name of María Angélica Vergara Cabrera, a Tabesa official.
– Luis Fernando Sebriano Gonzalez: former employee of Banco Basa, accused of being one of the authors of the delivery of money to the then fugitive Darío Messer, at the direction of his direct boss Eduardo Campos Marin, director of Basa and deprived of his liberty, prosecuted and imputed in the operation A Ultranza Py.
– Rancho Alegre SA: Among the raids of the A Ultranza Py operation, it was reported that this farm is listed in the name of Claudecir Da Silveira Sabino and David Cuellar Soler, who are also owners of the CDF company, the main “buyers” of Tabesa for a long time. . Claudecir came to have several arrest warrants in the states of Paraná and Matto, accused of truck theft, smuggling and drug trafficking.
