Follow the money or follow the money is the phrase that has been attributed to Deep Throat o Deep Throat, the senior FBI official Mark FeltI, who provided the main clues to journalists Bob Woodward y Carl Bernstein in his investigation of the Watergate scandal in 1972.
The first prosecutor of the Canton of Geneva, Yves Bertossa, who is responsible for complex cases, did just that: he followed the money trail.
While in Spain the filtering of the recordings of Corinna zu Sayn-Wittgenstein and the ex-cop Jose Manuel Villarejo On July 11, 2018, they conducted an investigation paripe at the National Court, first by Judge Diego de Egea and later by Manuel García-Castellón, Bertossa obtained with his entries and records in the offices of the two names that Corinna pronounced –Arturo Gianfranco Fasana and Dante Canonica- abundant documentation on foundations and bank accounts, information that he later completed with the entry into the Geneva Mirabaud bench, the entity that managed them.
The tip of the ball
It is said now very soon, but that was the tip of the ball, according to the file resolution (order) of last Monday, December 13, which allowed us to discover the 100 million dollars (64.8 million euros) that the Ministry of Finance of Saudi Arabia had entered into the account of the Panamanian foundation Lucum (created especially for this purpose) on August 8, 2008, of which, according to the documents, Juan Carlos I was the first beneficiary and the then Prince of Asturias, Felipe de Borbón, was the second. That money, hidden from the Spanish Treasury, after being used for four years in expenses and obtaining such high returns, allowed the same amount (64.8 million euros) to be transferred on June 5, 2012 to an account of the bank Gonet in Bahamas cuya beneficiaria era Corinna zu Sayn-Wittgenstein.
It certainly seemed sensible for Bertossa’s team of economics specialist Raphael Zbinden to aim for a money laundering. But laundering is not simply transferring money to someone else, in this case Corinna. It requires an original sin or, in criminal terms, an unlawful act. Commission, bribery or other illegal activities. As in the recordings Corinna spoke of commissions and the award of the Bird of the Desert Medina-Mecca, in Saudi Arabia, to a Spanish-Saudi consortium in 2011, the Bertossa team sought the link between the 100 million dollars and the railway project.
Neither the dates (2008) nor the idea that the commission was paid by whoever commissioned the work when normally the bites go in the opposite direction, that is, the payers are the companies, they fit into the puzzle. The investigation quickly stalled.
But the treasure map displayed at the Geneva Prosecutor’s Office, as illustrated in the resolution, told Bertossa that everything looked very bad.
2010 trip
Juan Carlos I had made a trip to several countries of the Persian Gulf in the spring of 2010. And that trip was the trigger for a situation similar to that of Danae receiving the golden shower, the famous oil on canvas by Titian. Because when he returned, the first week of April of that year, the then king of Spain and head of state brought a suitcase with $ 1,895,250 in banknotes, made a stopover in Geneva and handed them over to Fasana, who entered them into Lucum’s account on April 7. A gift, he explained to his manager, of the Sultan of Barhein. There was also a transfer of funds from that account to one of the five that Corinna also had in Mirabaud.
And in November 2010, the government of Kuwait deposited 5 million dollars in the Mirabaud bank, without any contract, in a Corinna account simply with an email. Later, in 2012, as noted, Juan Carlos I donated “irrevocably & rdquor; -in an undated contract- 64.8 million euros to Corinna and Juan Carlos I’s lawyer, Dante Canonica, He was rewarded by his client with a donation of $ 3.5 million; In 2014, Corinna received $ 2,000,000 into her account from Bahrain. From Corinna’s civil lawsuit in London in which she denounces that Juan Carlos I pressured her to return the 100 million dollars, it seems clear that the donation was not so “irrevocable.”
Many of these transactions, according to Bertossa, were done in a sloppy manner, without documentation, which was only possible because the owners knew who the beneficiaries were and looked the other way. To these transactions are added the 9 million euros – this does not appear in the resolution – that the Zagatka foundation (Liechtenstein, 2003) paid for the rental of private jets for the trips of Juan Carlos I and also Corinna.
If Bertossa had not investigated, on the basis of the clues that Corinna contributed to Villarejo in their recorded and filtered conversations, Juan Carlos I would still be the emperor of Hans Christian Andersen.
It was Bertossa, despite the Spanish judges, who had to play the role of the child when she saw the monarch walk naked in his magnificent invisible suit. He has failed to prove the criminal offense. But he has stripped a monarch about whom there have been, for decades, whispers and very little screaming.
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Reference-www.elperiodico.com