Panama scrambles to access frozen black funds

THE LIQUIDATION of  The Private Bank of Andorra (BPA), which was used to hide scores of millions of  bribery dollars  for Panamanians  linked to the Odebrecht scandal, including the sons of ex-president Ricardo Martinelli has $190 million frozen.

That includes  $70 million in deposits and another $60 million in fixed income. In turn, the bank had deposits of $ 100 million,  $60 million of these frozen in Andorra and $40 million in Panama. To guarantee the return of client funds, the liquidators of both entities in Panama must have access to money frozen by Andorrans reports La Prensa.

Marelissa Quintero, Superintendent of the  Panama Securities Market, indicated that in view of the need to complete the BPA settlement as soon as possible, they made an official visit to Andorra in October to seek operational agreements and redouble efforts in order to do more to reach the blocked assets.

Media reports in Madrid said that   “In its day  BPA was one of the symbols of the international expansion of the financial sector of the Pyrenean country and ended up becoming the image of the worst practices in the industry, after the United States accused it  of laundering the money from international crime network. One of its longest arms was the one that crossed the Atlantic Ocean to  Panama.”

“Panama, in fact, underlines that the decision to liquidate the firm is taken before the administrative silence of the Andorran authorities, responsible for BPA”

“Faced with this situation, Panama decided to initiate the forced liquidation of the Panamanian subsidiary of BPA and ordered to suspend all banking operations of the firm that, it asserts, has “a balance with sufficient assets to pay all depositors.”