A new financial ‘scandal’ has been presented today in Público, alleging that the Bank of Portugal (BdP) has called in the public ministry over “suspect money-laundering operations” at CEMG - Caixa Económico Montepio Geral, better known as Montepio Bank.
At issue are “failures in the control mechanisms” that suggest “crimes of money-laundering and the financing of terrorism”, writes the paper - adding that the transactions in question all originated within Finibanco Angola, 61% owned by the Montepio Geral association.
As the story is picked up by other news services, it is understood that the Attorney General’s office has neither confirmed nor denied the news.
According to Público, the BdP’s “denouncement” came as long ago as last April after a routine inspection by its checking department DAS.
Público explains that the law imposes “immediate” communication to the Attorney General or PJ unit of financial information of any detection of suspect failures in internal financial control systems “which would suggest the practice of crimes”.
Presenting the bombshell story as “Bank of Portugal denounces Montepio to Public Ministry”, Público agrees that “over the last few days” it has “questioned the Attorney General’s office (PGR) whether as a consequence of the alert from BdP it has opened a criminal inquiry” - but up until Thursday afternoon, it had not received a reply.
BdP has already told the paper that it does not “comment on actions relating to supervised banks” - and CEMG was staying schtum.
But today a report by RTP has claimed that the CEMG denies any whistleblowing on the part of BdP.
Giving a full definition of “money-laundering”*, Público adds more spice to the mix.
It recalls that “a few months ago” - April to be precise, when BdP urged for the replacement of Montepio’s boss Tomás Correia over “fears of a new BES” (click here to read) - “Tomás Correia went public with the guarantee that 90% of the proceedings flagged by the banking supervisor had been corrected, and 10% partially sanitised”.
What was not explained at the time was that two separate audits, one by DAS, the other by financial services company Deloitte, had caused the name of a generous businessman to pop up. José Guilherme was the man whose largesse had given disgraced BES boss Ricardo Salgado a whopping €14 million thank-you for putting business his way in Angola.
This is where Público’s story gets really interesting.
“Precisely a year ago, José Guilherme received a loan of €17 million from CEMG, backed by guarantees issued by Finibanco Angola”.
Finibanco Angola may be “supervised” by the Bank of Angola, stresses the paper, but there are no guarantees that “in case of necessity, Luanda authorises money transfers to liquidate responsibilities”. Meantime, only three months ago, Sol newspaper reported that José Guilherme’s business empire was “indebted and in a situation of great financial weakness”, Público adds. And so it goes on.
Público makes much of “breaks from tradition” by Tomás Correia that opened Montepio up to private entities - one of which was connected to José Guilherme’s son Paulo who acquired €18 million in shares “via loans from Finibanco Angola”.
The paper adds that Paulo Guilherme’s construction company Ludomus was in charge of two prestigious projects in Luanda, “financed by BES Angola - the bank at the epicentre of the BES/GES inquiry for having conceded credits of 5700 million dollars, in the most part without guarantee or proper identification of who the money was being lent to”.
The paper reminds its readers “that BES lent BES Angola €3300 million without contracts or guarantees”, adding that concerns over what Finibanco Angola was being used for had been reported to BdP three years ago.
As a final cherry on the cake of alleged corruption and malpractice, Público concludes its story saying: “Since 2010, CEMG and Finibanco Angola shared the same president, Tomás Correia, also at the head of (Montepio’s) Mutualist Association (the head of the bank)”.
Article courtesy of the Portugal Resident http://portugalresident.com/
