Banco Atlas and laundering operations: A Ultranza, Cabeza Branca and FIFAGate

The Atlas bank headquarters is being raided. PHOTO Angélica Giménez.

The Atlas bank, belonging to the Zuccolillo family, was summoned by the court to provide information on the bank accounts used by those involved in the A Ultranza Py operation to launder money from drug trafficking. This is a new scandal that shakes the entity, since in the past there were two cases linked to money laundering (Cabeza Branca and Atlas FIFAgate).

This is a new scandal that shakes the Atlas bank, since in the past there were two cases linked to money laundering. The first is related to the former sports manager Nicholas Leozand the second with the renowned drug trafficker Luiz Carlos da Rocha, aka White Head. In both cases, according to tax investigations, the Atlas bank did not perform due diligence; with Leoz he ignored the investigation and arrest warrant that he had from the US justice system; and in the “Cabeza Branca” case, he granted a million-dollar loan to a man who worked as a tractor driver for the drug lord, unable to meet his financial commitments.

According to the precedents, the Banco Atlas acknowledged that it carried out financial operations with a company that was run, according to a tax investigation, by a Name of drug trafficker Luiz Carlos da Rocha, alias Cabeza Branca, considered the main injector of dirty money from drug trafficking in Paraguay.

Through a statement, the directors of Banco Atlas (of the Zuccolillo family) alleged that in 2015 it granted a credit for US$ 4,238,350.67 to Biocombustible Brasilero SA. Precisely, Gilberto Suárez appears as president of the company and was the one who agreed to the line of credit, offering the Cielo Azul ranch as a mortgage guarantee.

This Atlas client is the alleged lender of the powerful drug trafficker Luiz Carlos da Rocha, alias Cabeza Branca, as revealed by the Prosecutor’s Office. At the same time, the stay offered for this credit is in charge of Senabico after the fiscal intervention. It is suspected that the mobster was figuring cattle business without even having an animal.

For Atlas, the destination of the credit granted by the bank was the cancellation of a loan in another bank and the financing of a livestock investment project.

Part of the Prosecutor’s report in which it indicates that Atlas and other banks would have been part of the money laundering scheme of Luiz Carlos da Rocha, alias Cabeza Branca.

On the other hand, in the case leozthe former sports manager delivered to Banco Atlas, when it already had an international arrest warrant for money laundering and other crimes by US justice, a little more than US$ 6 million in a trust operation. Based on a complaint from the current Conmebol authorities, the Prosecutor’s Office opened an investigation into an alleged money laundering scheme involving the Zuccolillo and Nicolás Leoz family bank.

Within the framework of this case the Specialized Unit for Money Laundering and Terrorism Financing of the Public Ministry had to raid the offices of the Superintendency of Banks, before the refusal of the head of this unit of the BCP, Hernán Colmán Rojas, to provide information related to the accounts that the former president of Conmebol Nicolás Leoz had at Banco Atlas.

Also, it is worth remembering that the Banco Atlas denied information to the US justice about commercial operations with Leoz, alleging “bank secrecy”.

The Prosecutor’s Office also has in its possession key documents that reveal how Nicolás Leoz would have used the Atlas bank to launder money from soccer.

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