The Scolari tax evasion story is growing as Portugal’s press today started to lay bare the facts, including revelations in court of a series of ‘massive bungs’ to the ex-manager of Portugal, and footballer turned businessman Luis Figo.
Figo too is implicated in dark fiscal deeds involving offshore accounts and covert cash payments and he and Scolari may have been rumbled as the investigations into failed bank BPN continue to unearth tax evasion tactics used by the bank's rich and famous clients, many of them politicians.
The Bank of Portugal is said to suspect that the Portuguese Business Bank (BPN) was used to funnel cash to various people, including Luiz Felipe Scolari.
It is no surprise that BPN is involved and a quote from a Bank of Portugal investigator, António Gomes, in court yesterday revealed that BPN made huge cash payments through an offshore account in the name of Marzion, a company registered in Wyoming USA.
This account was held by BPN property subsidiary Galilei, which changed its name from Sociedade Lusa de Negócios and is deeply implicated in a variety of BPN's less upstanding operations.
By using this devious Wyoming route between 2003 and 2008, Luiz Felipe Scolari is alleged to have received huge sums relating to image rights. These are the payments that the Attorney General's Office is investigating, accusing Scolari of tax evasion on a grand scale.
According to the Jornal de Noticias today, various sporting personalities and managers have received payments through the Wyoming route, and named national hero Luís Figo as one of them.
It is alleged that Marizion has been used to pay money to clients who held ‘investment accounts.’ When the company was wound up as BPN itself went bust, the money held by Marzion was transferred to Jared Financial, another offshore company in the U.S.A.
An estimated €600 million has been moved through these ‘investment accounts’ and the companies involved ended up showing losses of more than €31 million.
António Gomes’s statements were under oath in the continuing investigation into the conduct of the directors of BPN.
