On February 4, 2021, the legal representative of the South American Football Confederation (Conmebol) filed a criminal complaint for the alleged punishable act of money laundering against the directors of Banco Atlas. The basis of the complaint was the forensic audit carried out by Conmebol, which indicated a trust operation carried out between Nicolás Leoz and the Atlas bank for a value of US$ 6 million, despite the fact that the former sports leader was already under an arrest warrant. international capture of American justice.
The start of the investigation against the directors of the Atlas bank is two years old without any progress being made in the investigations or charges. The prosecutors assigned to the case, Liliana Alcaraz and Francisco Cabrera, encounter difficulties of all kinds due to the strong pressure that the Zuccolillo Group would be exerting through the ABC Color newspaper to prevent the case from advancing.
The prosecution is trying to reconstruct Leoz’s money route, for which it requested information from the Atlas bank on the commercial operations, movements, receipts and money payments made by Nicolas Leoz since 2001. The objective is to obtain the reconstruction of the money route and determine whether or not the bank complied with the application of anti-laundering mechanisms. The directors of the Bank denied this information to the Public Ministry.
For their part, the Central Bank of Paraguay and the Secretary for the Prevention of Money Laundering, key institutions in the prevention and fight against the scourge of this crime in our country, have not collaborated sufficiently in the criminal investigation against Banco Atlas. The directors of Banco Atlas were subjected to an on-site verification by the Superintendence of Banks (BCP) suspected of not applying mechanisms to prevent money laundering.
Up to now, the Central Bank has not submitted the conclusions after these supervision procedures to which Banco Atlas was allegedly subjected. Since May 30, 2022, the date on which the start of the inspection was communicated to the Public Ministry, there is no final report on said actions.
For their part, sources of the investigation assured La Caja Negra that the authorities of the Secretariat for the Prevention of Money Laundering, during the administration of Carlos Arregui, did not provide the prosecution with all the information requested in this regard. They limited themselves to attending a meeting, at the request of the prosecutors in the case, but then there was no longer good communication or contributions between the two institutions.
Last week a Federal Court in New York (USA) initiated a trial against two former executives of the US conglomerate 21 Century Fox and the Uruguayan sports marketing company Full Play, for their involvement in the “FIFAGate” corruption scandal.
In it new trial Facts that affect banking entities that participated in money laundering activities will be discussed. All the facts were accredited and even admitted by some banks. These cases confirm the facts that Nicolás Leoz was accused of (bribery and money laundering) and that determined his high-risk profile when negotiating the million-dollar trust contracts with Banco Atlas that managed to shield part of his dirty money.
ATLAS DIRECTORS ADMITTED OPERATIONS WITH DIRTY SILVER AND RETURNED PART OF THE LAUNDERED MONEY.
Banco Atlas admitted, via a statement, that they had operated with funds belonging to Nicolás Leoz and his direct family members since 2002. They also confirmed that they had received a request in the framework of the accusation presented by the Attorney General’s Office for the Eastern District of New York, in the publicly known case as “FIFA GATE”.
Specifically, Banco Atlas received a note sent by email on August 12, 2016 by the private law firm Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, hired by Conmebol, requesting relevant information for an investigation into former employees and funds of the Confederation.
Collapse of the Fifagate case.
? After two years, the Prosecutor’s Office is not advancing the investigation for dirty money laundering by Leoz at Banco Atlas.
?BCP and Seprelad “shield” the laundering mechanism at Banco Atlas and do not collaborate with Justice.#LaCajaNegraPy? pic.twitter.com/nXHasZ0NaO
— The Black Box (@CajaNegraPy) February 1, 2023
The requirement of the North American justice was sent in the context of the forensic audit carried out in strict compliance with the standards established by the US Attorney’s Office, for its use in the framework of the accusation presented by the New York Prosecutor’s Office, in the framework of the “FIFA GATE” case.
Banco Atlas, through its director Miguel Angel Saldívar, refused to provide information on its clients’ operations, hiding behind the banking secrecy established by law.
The Grupo Zuccolillo bank omitted to inform that they also received requests from the Paraguayan justice system, a request to which they refused to respond, which is why the prosecutor’s office had to proceed with a search of the headquarters of the bank, on April 21 of the year 2021, to obtain relevant information in the context of the case for alleged money laundering.
Conmebol reported in its ordinary congress on November 11, 2020 that it had managed to recover some 55 million dollars from Nicolas Leoz and the Argentine Eduardo Deluca, of which, according to public statements by its directors, 16 million dollars came from accounts from Paraguay. Since the new administration of Alejandro Domínguez at the helm of Conmebol, some US$ 128 million has been recovered.
The United States Department of Justice remits USD 71 million to CONMEBOL
In November 2020, Leoz’s daughters ordered the Atlas bank to assign the economic rights of a trust and transfer to Conmebol the sum of G. 8,881 million. Leoz’s own family made it clear that the operation at Banco Atlas was shady, and the bank in turn confirmed, by returning part of the money, that funds came out of these trusts as compensation for damages to Conmebol, as a result of conduct attributed to Nicolás Leoz.
CHRONOLOGY OF THE WASHING OPERATION CASE
Nicolás Leoz Almirón resigned in April 2013 from his positions at Conmebol and Fifa, after scandals and suspicions about bribery, including the possible opening of an investigation by Fifa. In 2015, he made public the criminal prosecution by the United States, which included money laundering. Leoz was accused of being responsible for the diversion of some US$ 200 million from Conmebol.
Despite the fact that there was an extradition request and an open criminal proceeding against him, the Atlas bank received more than US$6 million in trust from the former sports leader Nicolás Leoz to shield the money and ensure that it is not subject to embargo.
On February 11, 2016, Nicolás Leoz negotiated two trust agreements with Nicolás Leoz. Both were celebrated just 1 month and 4 days after the raid on Conmebol, in the framework of the widespread “FifaGate” scandal and the house arrest ordered against Leoz.
The Atlas bank ignored the warning signs about Leoz, extradition request and criminal proceedings opened against him, and authorized trusts for more than Gs 40 billion. The facts, public and notorious, pointed to Leoz as part of a mafia organization dedicated to fraud and money laundering.
The operations authorized by Atlas allowed Leoz’s money to be shielded, turning the fund into an autonomous patrimony, exempt from possible embargoes and administered by the bank in favor of Leoz and his daughters with the expressly agreed purpose of covering health expenses. and judicial processes.
