Tracking the Odebrecht bribery participants in Panama

Navigating in Panabrecht is like participating in a treasure hunt: you start with someone and you have a reward, but if you follow the clues towards the next stages you discover people whose participation in the case you did not know and, through their links, you arrive to build a complete scheme of the laundering circuit,  and the magnitude of the operation set up to collect and sustain Odebrecht’s millionaire bribes writes La Prensa.

You can start in the visualization at any node and you will end, a few clicks later, at its opposite. An easy example: Ricardo Martinelli, the former president who awarded Odebrecht at least 12 public infrastructure projects for at least $5 billion and with cost overruns of more than $1 billion.

Martinelli has 55 direct and 261 indirect connections in Panabrecht, through his companies and the connections of his connections. As soon as you click on his name and thus open the visualization node, he will be in the center surrounded by rays towards his immediate links: Adolfo Chichí De Obarrio, who was his private secretary and is now in the news because he bought gold bars in cash for his chief; relatives, front men and, the head of the Brazilian giant in the isthmus, André Luiz Campos Rabello.

Also, tied to him, companies, lawyers, and works granted during his management. There are, for now, 28 people, 13 companies, 9 works and two law firms one click away from the Martinelli node.

At the first stop on the treasure hunt, just one click away from Martinelli is Richeliu Investment Company Inc.

Created the same year that Odebrecht landed in Panama, 2006, Richeliu has on its board of directors the former president and his sons Ricardo Alberto and Luis Martinelli Linares, convicted in the United States for their participation in laundering bribes distributed, through the US financial system. De Obarrio not only acquired gold for Martinelli. He also did it for companies owned by him Among these companies, there are two that appear in Panabrecht and they are also linked to other corruption cases: Vigo Real Estate Inc. and, Richeliu.

The clue to Richeliu, whose ultimate beneficiary is Martinelli, leads us to Aaron Mizrachi Caribbean Holding Services Ltd. Caribbean wrote Richelieu a check for $350,000 on June 26, 2009, which was deposited the next day in a fixed term in the Global Bank.

By clicking on the node of the company in Panabrecht we can discover it: from Odebrecht, through the offshore companies it created to move dirty money: Innovation Research Engineering and Development Ltd., Klienfeld Services Ltd., Intercorp Logistic Ltd. and the Now famous Constructora Internacional del Sur, SA Panabrecht also shows it : he distributed it among companies linked to Martinelli and people around him, such as former ministers Jaime Ford Castro and José Domingo Arias, his sidekick Riccardo Francolini and who is designated as his figurehead, Ramón Carretero Napolitano.

Former president Juan Carlos Varela, also benefited from a transfer from Mizrachi. We could go on forever with the 24 connections of this company, but if we return to Richeliu we will find a new treasure: Gladden Corporation.

Gladden is another of Francolini’s companies, the former president’s trusted man, and was denounced in the New Business case because it would have been used in the purchase (presumably with public funds) of Editorial Panamá América, SA (Epasa) . According to records of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), it was created in 1998 in the Bahamas; Francolini and his wife, Iraida García, became shareholders in October 2009.

Gladden’s nexuses in Panabrecht go in two directions. : the companies and people from whom he received at least $4,738,000 in 2010. There are 17 more to those who sent at least $4,628,000 that same year, either by check or transfer .

Among the 17 agents who received these millions are the former director of the Panama Tourism Authority, Gustavo Him; the former minister Federico Pepe Suárez Cedeño and his sister Ana Isabel, and another Martinelli company: Vigo Real Estate.

Through the Vigo node in Panabrecht we can return to Martinelli and, once there: his former ministers, his children and his close friends, which branch out into hundreds of more nodes.