Blackmail and media pressure have become the modus operandi of the Zuccolillo business group, led by Natalia Zuccolillo, director of the newspaper Abc Color, not only to defend their economic interests but also to try to influence the authorities in power, either to avoid or reverse decisions that are not favorable to them. However, in recent years, the family has also been linked to shady businesses related to money laundering, first in the case of FIFAgate and Conmebol, where they provided protection and covered up the businesses of Nicolás Leoz and then with the well-known drug trafficker Luiz Carlos da Rocha, alias Cabeza Branca.
Source: The Nation
By Jorge Torres Romero and Cinthia Mora
In both cases, according to the tax investigations, the Atlas bank – the financial entity of the Zuccolillo group – did not carry out due diligence; with Leoz he ignored the investigation and arrest warrant he had from the US justice system; and in the “Cabeza Branca” case, it granted a US$6.5 million loan to a man who worked as a tractor driver for the drug lord, unable to meet his financial commitments.
According to a confidential audit report accessed by the “Black Box” team last year, it revealed the modus operandi of the Atlas bank, in the shield scheme and alleged money laundering of the late sports leader Nicolás Leoz. The Zuccolillo’s bank ignored the warning signs and authorized, without applying the corresponding procedure, the constitution of two trusts for more than G. 40 billion to shield Leoz’s dirty money.
Likewise, it was learned that, through an apparent figurehead, the drug trafficker “Cabeza Branca” did shady business with the Atlas bank to launder money and obtain a US $ 6.5 million loan for a company linked to the considered largest drug trafficker in America. from the south. Gilberto Suárez, accused of money laundering, an Atlas client, appears as the front man and president of the Biobras firm, who agreed to the line of credit, offering the Cielo Azul farm as a mortgage guarantee. In 2020, Cielo Azul passed into the hands of Senabico after the fiscal intervention in the case against drug traffickers and the twenty figureheads it had at its disposal.
When applying a judicial prohibition to contract on Cielo Azul, Senabico requested to suspend the auction and initiated a lawsuit that is still pending resolution.
BUSINESS WITH THE CURRENT GOVERNMENT
As if that were not enough, and continuing with practices that were already believed to have been banished, Mario Abdo Benítez left in the hands of a single media outlet, Abc Color, the management of the broadcast of the Odesur South American Games to be held in October. Indeed, without giving rise to real competition among bidders, the National Government awarded the Abc Group, under the name Editorial Azeta SA, for the production of materials within the framework of the XII South American Games Asunción – ASU2022 of Odesur. This is due to the fact that no other media in the country was notified about this call, so the awarded company ended up being the only one presented in the tender. The call for tenders for the “Contracting of a host broadcaster service for the XII South American Games Asunción 2022”, was made by the National Sports Secretariat (SND).
The firm awarded the contract for G. 16,434,495,000 (almost 2,400,000 dollars) conspicuously complied with the demands of the call despite the fact that, according to the Minister of Sports, Diego Galeano Harrison, he said that national companies could not comply with the high requirements.
SQUEEZE THE PROSECUTOR’S OFFICE
Another of the favorite targets in the campaigns of the Zuccolillo newspaper was the state attorney general, Sandra Quiñónez, against whom they published harsh accusations for not lending themselves to the maneuvers and pressure they exerted to prosecute or promote cases based on complaints published in their media.
The most recent has to do with the effort made by Abc to divert attention from the responsibility of the Government and “muddy the field” on the real meetings of the Iranians in Paraguay.
Since the beginning of the Iranian plane crisis, the ABC Color newspaper has conspicuously made efforts so that attention does not focus on the Government and its high responsibility in the absence of control or complicity and they have focused everything on Tabesa.
However, the newspaper itself, in a note signed by the then general editor of the media and dated October 13, 2018, maintains that, in the administration of former United States President Donald Trump, there was concern and discomfort about the course he was taking. Paraguayan foreign policy.
In the same note, the newspaper Abc (today unable to produce a criticism against the Government), slipped that “behind everything there could be political financing for Marito’s campaign through Vice President Hugo Velázquez, who was a prosecutor in Alto Paraná and it has ties to the rich Arab community of the Triple Frontier.”
