The business links of Raul Saint Malo

BUSINESSMAN Raúl de Saint Malo García, brother of  Vice-president Isabel de Saint Malo de Alvarado,  and related by marriage to a key  member of the Ricardo Martinelli inner circle was a favored concessionaire during the  Martinelli Government (2009 2014).

Star Tankers Bunkering, a partnership that De Saint Malo García created in 2010, was one of the few companies favored with a license from the Panama Maritime Authority (AMP) to provide the sale of fuel in barges.

A score of companies in the sector, complained that they had waited a year for AMP approval to participate in the business, but were never considered says a  La Prensa. Investigation.

“The company received the license and now they want to monopolize the service by forcing other companies to work for them ” said at that time, Carlos Ernesto González de la Lastra former secretary general of the AMP.

The board of directors of Star Tankers Bunkering was presided over by Raúl de Saint Malo, married to Mariana Virzi, the niece of Felipe Alejandro Pipo Virzi, member of the inner circle of ex-President Ricardo Martinelli, and who has been linked to several cases of alleged corruption in business with the past government.

Now the name of Raul de Saint Malo appears linked to Petro Trading Services Corp., a company created in the British Virgin Islands (BVI) on July 23 2011, and that, according to the Special Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office – investigating  the payment of bribes by Odebrecht – ordered the preparation of the management check dated June 25, 2014, of $1.9 million for the purchase of the helicopter N1626L, sized from  Luis Enrique Martinelli Linares, son of the ex- president.

The helicopter was the first asset of  the Ricardo Martinelli sons seized by the Anti-Corruption Special Prosecutor’s Office

The prosecution requested legal assistance from BVI to locate the  Petr Trading company, whose resident agent is Patton, Moreno & Asvat.

At the time of the formation of the company, Francisco Frankie Martinelli -cousin of the ex-president – worked for the firm and it was he who signed another check of $ 150,000 issued by the company Empremar Financial Corp., to Franconaves, S.A. For the purchase of the helicopter, reports La Prensa.

Petro Trading Services Corp. was dissolved on July 13, 2016, and the liquidator was Larissa Llamas, according to the Official Gazette of BVI. Llamas  is linked with Saint Malo in several companies incorporated in Panama,

including  Petro Trading Corp, a company that,

, was incorporated on July 25, 2011, just two days after

Petro Trading Services Corp. was created in BVI.

Larissa Llamas could not be reached by phone and did not respond to questions sent by email says La Prensa.