But \r\nthat was not the only connection of the group ?that was an accomplice in Peru, \r\nas an intermediary, of the payments for which today former President Toledo is a \r\nfugitive from justice? with Venezuela.<\/p>\n\n\r\n\n
They \r\nalready had businesses in the Caribbean country, which they shared with the \r\nexecutives of one of the most important cable TV and telephone operators, \r\nIntercable (currently, Inter).<\/p>\n\n\r\n\n
These \r\nbusinesses left no visible trace, saved for, ironically, the hermetic discretion \r\nof the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca.<\/p>\n\n\r\n\n
On \r\nFebruary 10, 2017, as is now known due to the leak of the so-called Panama \r\nPapers?originally received by the S\u00fcddeutsche Zeitung newspaper of Munich and \r\ncoordinated as a journalistic project by the International Consortium of \r\nInvestigative Journalists (ICIJ) of Washington DC?, a Suspicious Activity Report \r\n(SAR), intended for authorities against money laundering of the British Virgin \r\nIslands, circulated through the internal mail of Mossack Fonseca and triggered, \r\nundoubtedly late, the alarms inside the branch of the law firm in Tortola, \r\ncapital of the archipelago and one of the most impenetrable tax havens in the \r\nworld.<\/p>\n\n\r\n\n
The \r\nmemorandum warned about the activities of a group of offshore companies: Vision \r\nInvestments Equities INC., Caribbean Pressing LTD., Latin American Group \r\nInvestments INC., New Age Communications INC. and CIT Management Corp. It also \r\nmentioned the shareholders and beneficiary owners of the companies, Alberto Imar \r\nand Eduardo Stigol, both Argentinian, former director and president of Inter \r\nVenezuela, respectively; Leo Malamud, Maria Luisa Watson and, unsurprisingly, \r\nthe aforesaid accomplices of President Toledo, Yosef Maiman and Sabih \r\nSaylan.<\/p>\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/armando.info\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/23092018-2.jpg\")
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<\/div><\/div><\/a><\/figure><\/div><\/div><\/li><\/ul><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\nParticularly \r\nthem - the report assured \u2013 were suspected of money \r\nlaundering.<\/p>\n\n\r\n\n
\"They \r\nare allegedly involved with the Brazilian construction giant, Odebrecht S.A., \r\nand its petrochemical subsidiary, Braskem S.A.,\" warned the document, which was \r\nsent to the direction of the Financial Investigation Agency in the British \r\nVirgin Islands.<\/p>\n\n\r\n\n
(Late) \r\nMoney Laundering Alert<\/p>\n\n\r\n\n
It \r\nwas not the first time that the law firm's compliance officers took notice of \r\nthis group of investors. In the first quarter of 2016, they learned firsthand of \r\nan email exchange with one of the protagonists, the Argentinean Alberto Imar; \r\nthe \"nightmare\" they were experiencing as a result of the investigations on \r\nbillionaire Maiman, the head of the group, and Saylan for money laundering, \r\nwithin the framework of the so-called Ecoteva Case; the criminal process in \r\nwhich they were involved with their friend, former president Toledo, and his \r\nfamily.<\/p>\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/armando.info\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/23092018-5.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\"We \r\nare a business group with over 20 years of honest history, and we never imagined \r\nthis nightmare,\" acknowledged Imar, who led the communications of Inter \r\ncompanies with the firm, in an email sent to the Compliance Department of MF, on \r\nMarch 7, 2016.<\/p>\n\n\r\n\n
What \r\ncould have changed from the date of that confidence that the executives of \r\nMossack Fonseca received with understanding to early 2017, when the law firm \r\ndecides to report the distressed entrepreneurs?<\/p>\n\n\r\n\n
Simple, \r\nBraskem, the petrochemical arm of Odebrecht and the largest company in the \r\nsector in Latin America, had just pleaded guilty in a Federal District Court in \r\nBrooklyn - one of the five counties of New York City - to conspiring to violate \r\na Bribery law abroad. On December 21, 2016 Odebrecht agreed with US Department \r\nof Justice agents to pay a fine of $ 3,500 million - the largest ever required \r\nfor a case of bribes abroad - to settle international charges that included \r\npayments to Brazil's state oil company and politicians, including former \r\npresident Toledo.<\/p>\n\n\r\n\n
Mossack \r\nFonseca feared being dragged into this litigation in the United States of \r\nAmerica.<\/p>\n\n\r\n\n
\"We \r\nnoticed that Mossack Fonseca provided representation services to many, if not \r\nmost, companies. We also noted that general Powers of Attorney were granted. \r\nEven though most companies were eliminated, can you confirm the resignation of \r\nour directors, when appropriate, and the revocation of the Powers of Attorney? \r\nIn addition, can you say since when do we know that the client and his companies \r\nwere being investigated as part of the Odebrecht scandal?\" Questioned, on \r\nFebruary 14, 2017, the CEO of MF in the British Virgin Islands, Daphne Durand, \r\neager to get rid of those toxic customers.<\/p>\n\n\n
CEO of the law firm after learning the details of Odebrecht\u2019s bribes in Peru<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n Mossack \r\nFonseca in the British Virgin Islands asked to update the position of the \r\nrelated companies they helped to create and which, in some cases, they were \r\nstill related with.<\/p>\n\n\r\n\n
Just \r\na week before, she had received from Wendy Agard, from the Compliance Department \r\nof the Panamanian office, an email with the link of one of the reviews made \r\nabout the investigation on the digital newspaper Ojo P\u00fablico in Peru, revealing \r\nthat entrepreneurs close to Toledo and under investigation by the justice system \r\nin that country had used companies created by themselves to make deposits and \r\ntransactions that could be linked to payments of bribes.<\/p>\n\n\r\n\n
Two \r\ndays later, from Panama, Yakeline P\u00e9rez would send Durand a chart with the \r\nupdated information of 15 companies registered between 1997 and \r\n2015.<\/p>\n\n\r\n\n
The \r\nPeruvian media placed special emphasis on one of the companies, Vision \r\nInvestments Equities. They said, based on the first leak of the Panama Papers, \r\nthat it \"may be the most important offshore company\" linked to Toledo\u2019s \r\noperators Maiman and Saylan, and that in 2000, it managed almost 68 million \r\ndollars for the surplus of its assets [I1], which Argentines Stigol and Imar \r\ndenied in interviews for this report.<\/p>\n\n\r\n\n
Based \r\non documents of the communications of the group with the Panamanian law firm \r\nthat represented their companies, the also \"suspicious\" CIT Management Corp - \r\naccording to the Suspicious Activity Report or SAR - was the owner of just over \r\nhalf of the shares of Vision Investments Equities, the other shareholders of \r\nwhich, in order of importance, were Maiman, head of operations of the Merhav \r\nGroup, Leo Malamud, also Peruvian and Israeli-born, and \r\nSaylan.<\/p>\n\n\r\n\n
<\/p>\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/armando.info\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/23092018-6.jpg\")
<\/div><\/div><\/a><\/figure><\/div><\/div><\/li>![\"\"](\"https:\/\/armando.info\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/23092018-7.jpg\")
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<\/div><\/div><\/a><\/figure><\/div><\/div><\/li><\/ul><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\nAccording \r\nto the SAR, Vision Investments Equities, an investor in telecommunications \r\ncompanies, born in Panama in 1997, but domiciled since December 2015 in the BVI, \r\nwas the only one of the five \"suspicious\" companies by February 2017 that had \r\nactivities in Venezuela.<\/p>\n\n\r\n\n
Vision \r\nwas incorporated simultaneously with another Panamanian company, Digital \r\nInvestments Associates, at the request of Bentata, a Caracas law firm, which \r\naccording to Imar, was fulfilling orders from the law firm formerly known as \r\nHicks Muse, then HM Capital Partners?a private company in the United States of \r\nAmerica, specialized in leveraged buyouts? to create several companies for Inter \r\nin order to group partners and managers and give shares to senior \r\nmanagers.<\/p>\n\n\r\n\n
One \r\nof such companies was Vision Investments Equities and the instructions to create \r\nit, drawn from Caracas by lawyer Jos\u00e9 Javier Briz Kaltenborn, required Mossack \r\nFonseca not to include the directors of the companies, and that Powers of \r\nAttorney were issued for Mr. Saylan in the name of Digital Investments \r\nAssociates, and another for Malamud, Imar and Stigol, and Isaac and Gustavo \r\nZviklich, in the case of Vision Investments \r\nEquities.<\/p>\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/armando.info\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/23092018-19.jpg\")
<\/div><\/div><\/a><\/figure><\/div><\/div><\/li>![\"\"](\"https:\/\/armando.info\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/23092018-20.jpg\")
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<\/div><\/div><\/a><\/figure><\/div><\/div><\/li><\/ul><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\nMF \r\nissued the full and general Powers of Attorney, which allowed them to manage the \r\ncompanies \"without any limitation,\" \"anywhere in the world.\" Since 1998, at the \r\nrequest of Bentata, the Panamanian law firm began sending invoices for the \r\nmaintenance of both companies directly to an office in the Ciudad Tamanaco \r\nShopping Center (CCCT), in Caracas, addressed to Saylan, then vice president of \r\nMerhav -Maiman's company.<\/p>\n\n\n
Just One Among \u201cCachi Chien\u201d (Almost a Hundred)<\/h2>\n\n\n
Venezuelan \r\ntelecommunications company Intercable, now known as Inter, was born in 1996 in \r\nthe city of Barquisimeto, western central Venezuela. Two years before, Alberto \r\nImar had the first contact with Maiman's group, according to an email interview. \r\n\"They asked me for a professional opinion about the project they had, together \r\nwith other partners, to launch a subscription TV company in Venezuela.\" He was \r\ncalled like other executives with experience in the field.<\/p>\n\n\r\n\n
Always, \r\naccording to that story, Imar dragged Eduardo Stigol. Together, they made the \r\nmarket studies, the business plan and offered themselves as an independent \r\nmanagement to carry out that project. They knew each other from Argentina and \r\nboth had experience with subscription television, unlike Maiman who, according \r\nto Stigol, joined Inter as a shareholder \"who did not understand this business\" \r\nand put up \"some capital\" at the beginning. \"Some\" could have meant around three \r\nmillion dollars, as he recalls, a figure that considers \"very small\" for an \r\nentrepreneur \"as big as he (Maiman) was at that time.\"<\/p>\n\n\r\n\n
However, \r\nI did not consider him a \"small investor.\" \"He was a major partner, who made a \r\nsmall investment in a business in Latin America. He was going to wait for \r\nresults in time. Unfortunately, the political condition in Venezuela did not \r\nallow results and he did not see them,\" said Eduardo Stigol, president of \r\nInter.<\/p>\n\n\r\n\n
When \r\nIntercable was born, it was still a year before Venezuelan Bentata\u2019s lawyers \r\ncontacted those of MF, but Stigol affirmed that \"originally they were the same \r\npartners\" of Vision Investments Equities, including Maiman. However, both he and \r\nImar insist on dissociating themselves and Inter from Maiman, Vision Investments \r\nEquities and, in general, from any other company or business related to Maiman. \r\nThey claim that they were never their employees or of any of their companies, \r\nthat since 1998, he was a \"minority shareholder\" who never had \"anything to do \r\nwith the management of the company.\"<\/p>\n\n\r\n\n
\"I \r\nmay had seen him (Maiman) five times in all my life. He had an executive, Sabih \r\nSaylan, who did visit Venezuela frequently at the beginning, in those years \r\n(late 90's), because he had other businesses, and he was the one who called me \r\nto ask how the business was doing. But for them, ours was a business where they \r\nwere never involved, and I totally do not know what other businesses they had,\" \r\nsays Stigol.<\/p>\n\n\r\n\n
Imar, \r\nwho is very active in communications on behalf of the Mossack Fonseca group, \r\nseconded Stigol, \"We were totally oblivious to the other businesses of Maiman, \r\nin Venezuela and abroad. Our only connection was Inter, where he was a minority \r\npartner. We learned about the problems he had with Peruvian justice through the \r\nmedia, just like the rest of the world.\"<\/p>\n\n\r\n\n
The \r\nowner of the Inter brand in Venezuela is Corporaci\u00f3n Telemic C.A. Based on \r\ninformation from RNC (National Register of Contractors), in 2015, all the shares \r\nof Corporaci\u00f3n Telemic C.A. belonged to a company registered in Luxembourg, \r\nVenezuela Cable Service Holdings, Ltd., and although it appears as dissolved \r\nsince September 2015, Imar insists that it is still valid in another \r\njurisdiction, but he does not specify which one, and that it still owns \r\nCorporaci\u00f3n Telemic.<\/p>\n\n\r\n\n
In \r\nwhat follows, the statements of Stigol and Imar do not agree. According to Imar, \r\nthe owner of Venezuela Cable Service Holdings is Intercable Holdings, a company \r\nactive in the Cayman Islands since February 2011. For Imar, the chain ends in \r\nVenezuela Cable Service Holdings. In any case, both agree that since 1998, the \r\nmajority shareholder is a fund that is now leaded by US investor Tom Hicks -of \r\nthe late HM Capital Partners- and a group of banks, including Citibank and \r\nChase. Together they control 75% of the company. The remaining percentage of \r\nshares is divided among other shareholders, including original shareholders \r\nStigol and Imar. <\/p>\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/armando.info\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/23092018-12.jpg\")
<\/div><\/div><\/a><\/figure><\/div><\/div><\/li>![\"\"](\"https:\/\/armando.info\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/23092018-13.jpg\")
<\/div><\/div><\/a><\/figure><\/div><\/div><\/li>![\"\"](\"https:\/\/armando.info\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/23092018-doc.jpg\")
<\/div><\/div><\/a><\/figure><\/div><\/div><\/li><\/ul><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\nUntil \r\n2015, among the members of Corporaci\u00f3n Telemic, owner of the Inter brand, there \r\nwas a representation of the Maiman group, the group of the HM Capital Partners \r\nfund and the management of Imar and Stigol. Today, many are disconnected from \r\nthe company. The owner of Telemic was a company currently inactive in \r\nLuxembourg, Venezuela Cable Service Holdings, which was in turn owned by a \r\ncompany of the Cayman Islands, Intercable Holdings.<\/p>\n\n\r\n\n
Maiman \r\nwould have completely separated from the company, according to Argentine \r\nentrepreneurs, who claim to have lost contact with him. But Stigol and Imar \r\nversions as to how and when Maiman distanced himself from the company have many \r\ninconsistencies.<\/p>\n\n\r\n\n
In \r\nany case, as revealed in documents from the registry of the British Virgin \r\nIslands, which Armando.Info has access to thanks to the cooperation of the \r\nInvestigative Dashboard, Vision Investments Equities was liquidated on June 12, \r\n2017, a month after its closing was requested.<\/p>\n\n\r\n\n
\"Some \r\nshareholders would still be linked to Inter's business and others not. Maiman \r\nwas one of those who decided to separate from this business. Thus, the \r\nshareholders who decided to stay did so outside Vision, the others disassociated \r\nthemselves, and since Vision was only intended to represent them all together in \r\nInter, it finally dissolved,\" says Imar, who says that neither Saylan nor \r\nMalamud, of the Maiman group, are current members of Corporaci\u00f3n Telemic. Also \r\nothers from his management group and some members related to Hicks' group had \r\nalso disassociated themselves from the business. When they began to separate \r\nfrom Inter's business, most of the companies that had been created between 1997 \r\nand 1998 were liquidated.<\/p>\n\n\r\n\n
According \r\nto Stigol, the separation of Maiman would have occurred due to health problems, \r\nnot because of the corruption scandals surrounding the Peruvian \r\nentrepreneur.<\/p>\n\n\r\n\n
The \r\nonline portal of the Merhav Group of Maiman y Saylan still refers to Inter \r\nVenezuela as an undertaking under its \"ownership or management.\" It highlights \r\nthat the group \"promoted and developed,\" as an investor, \"the largest cable TV \r\noperator in the country.\"<\/p>\n\n\r\n\n
And \r\nit is not the only project in Venezuela that they proudly \r\ndisplay.<\/p>\n\n\r\n\n
Works \r\nwith the State<\/p>\n\n\r\n\n
\"In \r\npartnership with the Halcrow Group in the United Kingdom, Merhav implemented \r\nmajor water and sewage treatment projects with a total investment of $ 250 \r\nmillion,\" they affirm in the portal, referring to the work that Merhav developed \r\nin Venezuela for the Environment portfolio.<\/p>\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/armando.info\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/23092018-17.jpg\")
<\/div><\/div><\/a><\/figure><\/div><\/div><\/li>![\"\"](\"https:\/\/armando.info\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/23092018-18.jpg\")
<\/div><\/div><\/a><\/figure><\/div><\/div><\/li><\/ul><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\nThe \r\nMerhav Group, a conglomerate of companies specializing in the development of \r\nlarge-scale infrastructure projects that Maiman founded in 1975, displays on its \r\nwebsite the investments made by the Group in Venezuela in terms of \r\ntelecommunications and environmental sanitation.<\/p>\n\n\r\n\n
According \r\nto the National Registry of Contractors (RNC), the Merhav Group\u2019s company in \r\nVenezuela executed projects for different Venezuelan State agencies, under the \r\nadministration of Saylan and the general management of an individual named Meir \r\nGabay. Although it is now unable to contract with the State, in 2004, Merhav \r\nVenezuela provided technical and technological support in the inspection and \r\nchemical cleaning of the desalination plant on the main island of the Los Roques \r\narchipelago, a Caribbean paradise, at one hour by plane, north of \r\nCaracas.<\/p>\n\n\r\n\n
In \r\nAugust 2006, the Group undertook two other projects, also contracted by the \r\nState. One project, through Fundaci\u00f3n Propatria 2000, ?an organization attached \r\nto the Ministry of Infrastructure, now attached to the Ministry of the Office of \r\nthe Presidency and Follow-up to Government Administration? to participate in the \r\nconstruction of the longed-for and controversial Acarigua - Barquisimeto \r\nhighway, to be opened for the 42nd Copa Am\u00e9rica Soccer Championship, which took \r\nplace in 2007, in Venezuela.<\/p>\n\n\r\n\n
However, \r\nby the end of 2007, only 40% of the project was completed, as recorded in the \r\nRNC form. An environmental sanitation project, simultaneously undertook by the \r\ngroup through the State Government of Aragua, had the same percentage of \r\nprogress.<\/p>\n\n\r\n\n
However, \r\nanother company claims responsibility for the execution of these works on its \r\nwebsite, Mundo Kari\u00f1a Ambiente C.A. The names of its partners are repeated in \r\nthis plot, Gabay and a woman named Esther \r\nPirozzi.<\/p>\n\n