Panama corruption: Virzi points to Martinelli in his statement

Former Panamanian vice president pointed out to the Prosecutor’s Office that his partner Ricardo ‘Ricky’ Calvo was the person who distributed the payments that former President Ricardo Martinelli ordered to be sent from H&H funds.

• Virzi identified former president Martinelli as the one who ‘pressured’ and gave ‘instructions’ to whom payments should be made by the company in charge of the project. (Photo: prensa.com).

2015-06-18

English:By: prensa.comFormer Vice President and businessman Felipe Alejandro Pipo Virzi was determined to expand his investigation before the third anti-corruption prosecutor, Zuleyka Moore, on June 16, and willing to change the attitude he had in his first meeting with the head of that office 13 days earlier.”I was not prepared the day I came to the previous summons, I had no idea,” declared Virzi before beginning to respond to the prosecutor, who has charged him with the alleged commission of money laundering crimes, for the payments he received from the Ecuadorian company Hidalgo & Hidalgo (H&H), in charge of the failed Tonosí irrigation project, in the province of Los Santos.Virzi, accompanied by his lawyer Guillermina McDonald, said that he joined the Tonosí irrigation system project due to an “invitation” made to him by Porfirio Ellis, “to support the [project] being carried out.”Ellis, a staunch defender of Ricardo Martinelli’s administration, was a candidate for deputy for Cambio Democrático in the last elections.Later, Virzi explained that he went to the Presidency of the Republic to speak with Martinelli “to explain to him the interest I had in carrying out the project… I had the company that could do it.”

Extract from Virzi’s statement. (Photo: prensa.com).The contract

The businessman, linked to politics and cattle, told the prosecutor that he hired Luis Vargas “to negotiate on my behalf with the company Hidalgo & Hidalgo (H & H), the number one builders in Ecuador, the most important company in Ecuador.”

He reported that Vargas obtained “in a professional and beneficial way for me” a contract for professional services with H&H. The company then won the contract in 2012.

The contract was signed in 2012, on behalf of the State, by the then Minister of Agricultural Development, Oscar Osorio, detained for these investigations. Marco Albán Crespo, also detained in this case, signed it for H&H.

The agreement was signed for US$155 million, despite the fact that there was no land for the execution of the work, which would help agriculture and livestock in the Azuero region.

Despite the little progress on the project, the company received disbursements from the State for US$37.4 million between 2012 and May 2014.

First payment, pressure and Martinelli

Virzi, former vice president during the mandate of Ernesto Pérez Balladares (1994-1999), told the prosecutor that once the first payment agreed in his contract with H&H was made, the pressure and his annoyance began.

“Immediately after [the first payment] President Ricardo Martinelli began to give me instructions on how to distribute my payment.” Virzi allegedly received a check for US$5 million from H&H on August 9, 2012.

He indicated that once he received Martinelli’s instructions “I got angry and complained.”

However, he told the prosecutor that if he did not follow Martinelli’s instructions “it could affect my companies and projects and even my relations with him [Martinelli].”

Virzi was referring to his businesses related to livestock, agriculture, real estate and tourism projects, among others.

‘Ricky’ Calvo made the payments

Virzi indicated that the first check he received from H&H was not even “endorsed, but rather they disposed of it and deposited it in Summer [Venture Inc.] and that Ricardo ‘Ricky’ Calvo was in charge of the distribution of the money.”

He emphasized that in the second payment from H&H, through a transfer, “the pressure immediately began for him to make the distribution [of the money].”

Virzi, according to the investigations of the Prosecutor’s Office, received a transfer from H&H for another US$5 million, which was also deposited into the account of Summer Venture Inc. in Banco Universal, owned by his family and which is now under administrative control of the Superintendency of Banks of Panama.

He again mentioned that Calvo was the one who He gave him, in writing, the banking instructions to which the deposits were going and that he had to sign them.

Calvo, supposedly out of the country, is Virzi’s partner. “He is like a son to me,” he said to the prosecutor.

Questions

The prosecutor asked Virzi a series of questions about the accusations he made about former president Martinelli and Calvo.

Can the suspect tell us what he means when he says he received instructions from president Ricardo Martinelli?

Virzi answered: “The instructions were that I had to distribute my payment, my work, according to his [Martinelli’s] instructions, when the company paid me the two payments. He sent me a list of the people to whom I had to distribute the money I had earned from my contract.”

He added that Ricardo Calvo gave him the list.

There is a brief pause in the investigation due to Virzi’s state of health, who asks for a glass of water and then says he could continue.In describing the situation in detail, Virzi stated: “The president sent the list and [sent] the instructions to my office and Ricardo Calvo received them so he could take care of it, because I was upset, angry and I went inside.”

He added that “they were aware of everything and every time the payment was going to be made and the pressure came, I went inside because I felt pressured and I didn’t even answer the note. Ricardo Calvo took care of it.”

‘Summer Venture Inc. belongs to Calvo’

In his inquiry, Virzi gave details of the company Summer Venture Inc., in which the money he received from H&H was deposited. He used an account of the company in the Banco Universal.

Virzi tried to disassociate himself from the company and told the prosecutor that “I am a signatory in that Summer Venture account, but I have never signed or ordered instructions for that account. In reality, I do not have that account and I have the evidence today.”

He revealed that Calvo is the owner of Summer’s account and the one who ordered everything related to the company.

“The account was his [Calvo] it’s true, I can prove it and I am a signatory like in many other accounts, even in accounts signed by cousins ​​and partners.”

Asked by the prosecutor how he became a signatory of the Summer Venture Inc. account, he answered that he did so because Calvo “asked me to and I signed the paper.”

Summer Venture Inc. is mentioned in other scandals, such as the trial of the then Supreme Court judge Alejandro Moncada Luna, for the purchase of two apartments for US$1.7 million.

Moncada Luna was sentenced to 60 months in prison by the National Assembly’s Guarantees subcommittee for the crimes of unjustified enrichment and falsification of public documents.

Recently, it was learned that this company was disqualified, since October 2014, by the Public Registry of the British Virgin Islands for non-payment of its single tax.

The company had been incorporated into the British Virgin Islands Public Registry in 2006.

Virzi’s ‘mea culpa’

The businessman said that he now realizes that what he did for his work with H&H “is nothing left for me and he can’t do anything.”

“Madam prosecutor, I have 71 years serving my country, a lot of work, I don’t have to put this career at risk to fall into money laundering… and he requested a change of precautionary measure,” he declared.

The businessman has been in preventive detention since June 3.

“If through any action of mine, going to speak with President Martinelli, I committed a crime, I feel sorry,” he said when recalling the visit he made to Martinelli to tell him about the irrigation project.
Two days ago, Virzi deposited US$5 million to the sole account of the National Treasury from the payments he received. “I am submitting all the evidence,” he said.

The beneficiaries

As evidence, Virzi gave the prosecutor the documents called “Purchase Request.” Two dated August 14, 2013, one dated July 19, 2013, and another dated July 22, 2013.

In them, Virzi records the people who received payments on Martinelli’s instructions, as a result of his contract with H&H.Judicial investigations carried out in this case reveal that part of Martinelli’s circle zero were the beneficiaries.

Gabriel ‘Gaby’ Btesh received US$360,000; the candidate for deputy of Cambio Democrático, Porfirio Ellis, received US$319,000. The developer of Desarrollo Los Andes, SA received US$500,000. This company is linked to former president Martinelli.

Abdiel Atencio, former National Director of Rural Engineering and Irrigation of the Ministry of Agricultural Development, received another US$20,000 from Virzi.

Martinelli, Calvo and Btesh are out of the country.

According to constitutional provisions, it would be up to prosecutor Moore to send this file in which Martinelli, current deputy of the Central American Parliament, is mentioned, so that it can be considered by the Supreme Court of Justice.