It is no surprise that Ricardo Salgado was involved in the sort of offshore schemes that have been laid bare by revelations from the Panama Papers but he has now been caught out lying to the BES parliamentary committee of inquiry.
The Portuguese prosecutor is now involved in investigations into ES Enterprises based in the British Virgin Islands which was used for years to house an Espírito Santo slush fund.
Documents show that €300 million or more has been channelled through ES Enterprises whsoe structure has been used as a convenient and virtually untraceable channel for paying kickbacks and ‘commissions’.
The ES Enterprises company was set up as part of Grupo Espírito Santo (GES) but was never shown in any company documentation or chart, something that Salgado admitted was a “failure.”
The company, hidden in the secretive folds of the GES structure, operated in secret for over 21 years and was set up by members of the High Council of GES, namely the core members of the Espírito Santo family, including the group president Ricardo Salgado and vice president José Manuel Espírito Santo.
The Expresso newspaper today states that "Ricardo Salgado and Jose Manuel Espírito Santo did not tell the truth to the BES parliamentary committee of inquiry" recalling that in December 2014 during the hearing, José Manuel Espírito Santo said that he had 'only recently become aware of the existence of ES Enterprises' and that he had no knowledge what it did, when in fact he had been involved in this slush fund payment machine that was set up 1993.
Ricardo Salgado said to the BES commission of inquiry that ES Enterprises was for the ‘provision of services to the financial sector,’ admitting it should have been noted on the GES organisational chart.
Within the Panama Papers there are almost 100 documents directly relating to ES Enterprises, "some of them with dozens of pages, including exchanges of emails and minutes of meetings that allow us to rebuild not only the history of this GES slush fund but also some of their other activities as important decisions were being taken," write Expresso.
Mossack Fonseca, the financial and legal services company from which the Panama Papers were leaked, carried out work for GES, both directly and through Eurofin, the Swiss company involved in the issuance of debt and that was at the centre of the collapse of the Espírito Santo empire.
ES Enterprises is headquartered in the British Virgin Islands and had an account at the Banque Privée Espírito Santo, part of the empire.
Ricardo Salgado and José Manuel Espírito Santo's credibility has sunk lower than was thought possible. Salgado's duplicity in front of a parliamentary committee will not stand him in good stead if and when he ever is charged and goes to court to face charges surrounding the collapse of the complex and ultimately flawed, Espírito Santo empire.
Comments
Ever on the mark and the 2nd para says it all.
In or out, whatever the people of UK want, we ex-pats are better off if she stays in - and should be given the vote, as E'U' citizens all.
Back to BES, how is shooting Novo Banco - and its wage-earning employees - in its foot going to help it, sale or no sale? A = it's helping those on 25K/month, et al. Shame all 'round.
I feel a re-routing of the Alpheus and Peneus rivers coming on....
The present EU is not fit for purpose. It is led by political lightweights like Barroso and Juncker, and Foreign Secretary Ashton (who?). It is designed to support French farmers with subsidies, and it cannot even produce audited accounts of its own activities.
The Salgado case highlights once again the role of BVI, the Caymans, Gibraltar, Jersey, Guernsey, the Isle of Man etc etc in illegal avoidance of tax. When will Cameron stop pontificating about and mishandling his own personal tax affairs and begin to clear the Augean Stable of tax-havens in the old British Empire?
But certainly we foreigners from other EU states should be ashamed that these 'advanced country' regulation procedures are still being so totally and consistently ridiculed in Portugal. A fellow EU country - with allegedly 30 years to get its head round the requirements.
So why should this lack of progress continue to sadden us EU foreigners ? Because it is playing into Brexit hands and all the other pan-EU 'advanced nation' nationalist arguments and most recently seen in the result of the Netherlands Ukraine referendum.