Company in eye of storm denies bribing Panama government

The Italian conglomerate Finmeccanica denied on Tuesday having "paid or promised bribes" in the form of cash or property to the Government of Panama. 

The company was responding in a statement to the publication by the Italian press reports of new research on Valter Lavitoa the former director of the newspaper Avanti Lavitola Valter, charged with blackmailing the former prime minister of Italy Silvio Berlusconi in connection with their holidays with young people and pointing to the alleged payment of bribes to Panamanian officials in exchange for public contracts.

The story is making headlines around the world and, according to commentators, blackening the country’s name/

Lavitola was arrested on Monday, April 16 on his arrival at Rome's Fiumicino airport from Argentina, where he sought refuge after fleeing Panama when the alleged scandal broke. In addition to blackmail he is beinq investigated foe alleged illegal diversion of funds abroad and of bribes to politicians in Panama.

Italian media said Wednesay, April 18, that, according to research data to which it had access, Lavitola promised tens of millions of euros to Panamanian officials to sign a contract worth 176 million euros for the construction of several institutes prisons, which finally did not  place.

The daily La Republica weighed in with a a transcript of a conversation August 21, 2011 between Lavitola and Finmeccanica's commercial director, Paolo Pozzassere, speaking of  delivering a helicopter to the president of Panama, Ricardo Martinelli, "in anticipation of payment of 30 million " that was promised. According to the report, neither the helicopter nor the rest of the payment was delivered, and that the operation came to light after the Lavitola name appeared in the investigation of alleged blackmail and bribery.

Finmeccanica denied the story  and  said Giuseppe Orsi, then head of the Augusta Westland company, a Finmeccanica subsidiary, never authorized "to make available or provide a helicopter to the Government of Panama or its president..

Italian investigators are focusing their investigation on the Agafea Corp., owned by Gustavo Franchella, an Argentinian living in Panama. The young CEO  is Karen Yizell De Gracia Castro who  supposedly served as an intermediary in business between Finmeccanica and the Panamanian government.