Former president mocks Panama State

In a suspicious move, a company – which belongs to the corporate conglomerate used to hide the current owners of Editora Panamá América, SA (Epasa) – stopped paying its credit commitments contracted with a local bank, aware of the consequences it would have.

This is a kind of revenge for the trial that has resulted in the conviction, for money laundering, of a former president who is the largest shareholder of the newspaper company. As a consequence of the decision not to pay the loan – more than $10 million – the bank executed the guarantees: nothing less than the furniture and real estate that had previously been transferred to Inmobiliaria TPA, SA Thus, this company ceased to be the owner of the assets, which were, in turn, Epasa’s greatest asset: two properties valued at millions of dollars. This means that the State, when it comes to recovering the money that came from state contractors to buy the publishing house, will not receive a cent from those properties, at most, shares that, without tangible assets, are nothing more than paper. The former president thus mocks the State, preventing it from recovering assets that should have been used for works, not to buy a means for private usufruct. – LA PRENSA, Feb. 20.