Scandal brokerage customers get near $18 million

CUSTOMERS of the scandal plagued Financial Pacific (FP) will share $17.931 million that was in the hands of the brokerage

They will receive $ 0.81 for every dollar cash held in the controversia lfirm  whose history includes a disappeared auditor, believed killed, stabbings, burglaries, erased data bases,  and a High Spirit account allegedly  used by ex-president, Ricardo Martinelli to  manipulate Peraquilla mining shares.

The settlement figure was confirmed by the Superintendency of Securities (SMV), according to the information provided by the liquidator Jose Angel Hidrogo.

The brokerage was seized on July 2, 2014 and ended with liquidation in August the same year.

The market generally expected that the pay-out figure would be lower because of administrative irregularities found in the company, whichtriggered the intervention and then the liquidation.

FP assets returned to customers included checks that were rejected for insufficient funds, and investment accounts opened without completing the required documentation. There was mismatch between customer accounts and bank balances.

Something very unusual in the settlement process, as confirmed by the regulator, is that despite all the money that was recovered there are companies that never appeared to claim the funds belonging to them and administered by FP, reports La Prensa.

The report delivered to the SMV states that customers will be refunded $ 17.9 million. The figure comes from a first recovered amount, amounting to $ 15.5 million and then rose to $ 2.4 million.

Investors have priority to collect their credits above workers and brokerage accounts pending with the Social Security Fund (CSS) and the Treasury.

Just when the intervention was in place, the database of the securities firm was deliberately destroyed to prevent the liquidator from following the trail of all the invested money. Investigations are continuing into the Martinelli links, perceived money laundering, and a manager under house arrest accused in a missing $12 million investigation, who blew the whistle on the High Spirit account and the alleged intervention of the then Attorney General, now  Supreme Court President, Ayu Prado and former Cabinet member and Martinelli confidant, Salomon Shamah.