Boxes of gold uncovered in Super-99  basements

A recent publication, the digital medium Foco reveals the contents of the hard drive of the computer of Adolfo “Chichi” de Obarrio, who was the private secretary of former President Ricardo Martinelli  (2009-2014). The publication reports the purchase of gold bars and coins by the former official. He tells, for example, that in July 2010, at Credicorp Bank, De Obarrio bought $117,000 in gold in a single day.

However, gold purchases had been going on for at least six months before. In other words, after six months in government, De Obarrio was already buying gold. By July 2010 –one year after taking office from Martinelli – De Obarrio had already accumulated gold purchases that exceeded $750,000.

De Obarrio photographed the bars and kept those images on his computer, according to Foco. According to the documents exposed, De Obarrio also bought gold for Ricardo Martinelli, as well as for the Ricamar Financial Company; Richeliu Investment Company, Inc.; Vigo Real Estate Inc., and Inmobiliere Le Pita, Inc. The first two companies are mentioned in Odebrecht’s tax hearing.

Richeliu Investment Company, for example, received funds from Caribbean Holding Services, a company owned by the former president’s brother-in-law, Aaron Mizrachi whose company served as an intermediary to receive money from Odebrecht’s Box 2 (the Structured Operations Sector its bribes department). Since January 2009, these funds were sent to Importadora Ricamar and other companies linked to the Martinellis.

According to the documents revealed by Foco, the mentioned companies paid part of the gold that De Obarrio bought, including Richeliu.

The company Kroll was hired in 2018 by the board of Empresas Martinelli, SA to create corporate governance –especially in Importadora Ricamar, owner of the 99 supermarkets–. The plan was to design and execute a “compliance monitoring program” monitoring” program, but Kroll resigned before the end of 2019.

However, Kroll was informed of some investigations carried out internally at Importadora Ricamar. One of these began in June 2019, when the compliance officer, Magalis Reyes (RIP), informed Kroll’s representative, James Faulkner, that an “anonymous call by the corporate ethics line” had been answered, in which possible findings were reported in three places of the company.

On June 11, 2019, Reyes and two other senior Super 99 executives requested the company controller –in a letter– that, given their experience in the proceedings carried out at the Super 99 branch in Chitré, “we recommend taking an inventory complete detail in the vault located in the office of Mr. Ricardo Martinelli. It requires a full day of work since there is a lot of money in it, gold and silver coins of different denominations, paper money in different denominations from different countries, as well as gold and silver of different presentations, jewelry, documents personal files, copies of other people’s legal files, photo albums, a large number of CDs, VHS and cassettes… ”

The letter also requested that an inventory be made at each Super 99 branch in its vault areas, listing everything found in them, including the security measures in place at each branch

Martinelli’s Vault
The letter was accompanied by nine photographs that included a partial inventory of the interior of the security vault in Ricardo Martinelli’s office, which was opened to discover inside, among other things, a “folder with information related to Fegali and his accounts.” banking”; a folder “from the company Gaming and Service de Panamá, SA” and a folder “with information related to the company Shelf Holding, Inc.”.

They also found “documents from the National Migration Directorate”; a folder “from the company Lucy Games [sic] related to dividends”; “documentation related to María Cristina González” [former Director of Immigration]; a folder “with information related to copies of checks in the name of JANOV”; “legal documents related to the complaint of Hidden Assets Resort & Marina”; “Office with a list of Chinese requesting authorized visas from the National Directorate of Migrations…”.

Shelf Holding Inc. is a corporation in which former president Ernesto Pérez Balladares had a signature –which, according to investigations by the Public Ministry, received periodic deposits of money from Lucky Games, a company that in his government benefited with a direct concession, without bidding. The former president said in 2010 that the money received was legal and that he was not a shareholder of Lucky Games.

In the partial inventory of Martinelli’s vault, “a one-kilo gold bar from Credicorp Bank” was also found; collector coins, gold coins; silver coins… cash of different denominations, and from other countries. But that was only the beginning.

The compliance officer in charge also carried out another procedure to verify the veracity of the complaints made by the ethics line of Importadora Ricamar. This time, they visited the Super 99 branch in Chitré, There they found a safe, wrapped in cardboard and plastic. The branch staff indicated that the safe had been there for 4 or 5 years.

The box of securities was not registered, according to the Reyes report, neither by Internal Audit nor by Operational Audit. The box was opened on June 10, 2019, by a locksmith. Inside they found a stuffed animal and three wooden boxes with alleged wine inside.

But the boxes did not contain wine, but something more valuable. They found 14 gold bars of one kilo each; a gold bar weighing five kilos, all with the Credicorp Bank logo; also three other bars of gold; four wooden boxes with silver bars and 104 gold coins of one ounce each.

They even found what appeared to be archaeological pieces that also appeared to be made of gold. La Prensa sent a note with five questions to Luis Eduardo Camacho, Martinelli’s spokesman, for Martinelli to answer, but there was no response.

In addition to asking about the origin of the gold, with what funds it was purchased, and why it was not registered as the property of Importadora Ricamar,  it questioned why documents related to Shelf Holding and Lucky Games were found in the former president’s safe, as well as documentation on “Fegali’s” bank accounts and visa applications of Chinese citizens.

Rolando Rodriguez B. La Prensa