Six years after the gigantic international scandal of the bribery structure of the construction company Odebrecht broke out, in Uruguay no person named in the cases has faced legal consequences, despite having been accused of money laundering and illicit associations.
In an article published by the Argentine newspaper The nation It is stated that the Uruguayan Justice “filed complaints and rejected requests for collaboration or extradition to prevent citizens of their country accused abroad from being subjected to investigations”, an affirmation that emerges from a report of the Structured Journalistic Investigations Networkmade up of eight South American media outlets: The nation (Argentina), metropoles (Brazil), the Latin American Center for Journalistic Research (Colombia), The universe (Ecuador), Fifth Element Lab (Mexico), the press (Panama), IDL Reporters (Peru), Southeast (Uruguayan) and Armando.info (Venezuela).
The report reads that the local legal firms that advised on the criminal plot, as well as the banks that kept funds and the figureheads that offered their names to move money, have not suffered consequences in the Uruguayan courts.
The main subjects, responsible for the network, remain free despite the fact that a few foreigners were arrested and extradited-
The Uruguayan portal Southeast has offered on its portal a list of 17 names, among which there are accountants, lawyers and other business operators with headquarters and operations in Uruguay. A businessman with the Uruguayan surname Dentone stands out, who allegedly would have moved millions of dollars of Argentine bribes.
“Sabrimol Trading received US$2.1 million from the offshore firm Select Engineering Consulting and Services, based in the British Virgin Islands, in addition to another US$4.8 million from the also offshore Klienfeld Services, and US$315,000 from InterTrading Ltd, in addition to of US$1.5 million from Innovation Research Engineering and Development Ltd and, finally, US$251,000 from the Panamanian Magna International Corporation”, he points out. The nation, clarifying that all these funds would come from a parallel accounting of Odebrecht and were intended to pay bribes to public officials. For his part, the businessman Dentone told the media and the Argentine Justice that the true owner of Sabrimol Trading is the Argentine lobbyist Jorge ‘Corcho’ Rodríguez, who in turn denied it categorically.
Dentone is prosecuted by the Argentine Justice but, in Uruguay, he has not been passed through the courts, the same fate that others involved with Sabrimo have had.
Another individual with the last name Sanguineti Barros was prosecuted in 2018, when he was taken to a prison in Andorra for the crime of money laundering, according to the sentence of Judge Canòlich Mingorance. He only spent two months behind bars and returned to Uruguay thanks to an agreement that allowed him to continue his sentence on probation and return to his business activities.
“Sanguinetti Barros is a Uruguayan, a friend of mine, an acquaintance of my family. He worked in the [banco suizo] PKB also in Uruguay and worked at the Espirito Santo Bank of Portugal. It was for the Private Bank of Andorra, he looked for me, and we began to have a relationship. I went to Andorra and met the leadership of the bank and we began to work, ”he said in interrogations before the Brazilian Justice Luis Eduardo da Rocha Soares, who was a high-ranking executive of Odebrecht at the time of the bribes.
