Horacio Cartes’ assets almost tripled during his tenure as President of the Republic. This was revealed in what the Colorado politician himself included in his sworn statements of assets and also through the complaint filed against him by the Minister of the Interior, Arnaldo Giuzzio.
Giuzzio denounced Cartes for money laundering and other acts before the Secretariat for the Prevention of Money Laundering (Seprelad). The 30-page complaint reveals a series of striking facts regarding the movement of money made by the former president.
Offshore undeclared
Cartes submitted affidavits four times during his presidential term. The first striking point was revealed already last year by the worldwide leak known as the “Pandora Papers”. The documents delivered to the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) and shared with ABC Color revealed that the former president managed a portfolio company in Panama during the years of his mandate and did not include it in his statements of assets.
But Dominicana Acquisition was neither the first nor the only offshore company linked to Cartes. The former president opened another briefcase firm in Panama in 1985, when he claimed to be a tourism agent and three years before being declared a fugitive for a case of currency evasion. In 1995, directors of Banco Basa –owned by the Cartes family– opened a bank in the Cook Islands, considered a tax haven.
millionaire loans
Another quite striking point in Cartes’s affidavits is that the loans he himself made to people and companies around him increased fivefold during his government.
In 2013, it declared that it had accounts receivable for G. 299,287 million. Among his debtors appeared several of his companies and also the Libertad club, the same one of which he became president years before launching into politics.
In 2014, it had accounts receivable for G. 350,387 million.
When he left the presidency of the Republic, in 2018, he had accounts receivable for more than G. 1.7 billion, four times more than what he declared when he became president.
Among his biggest debtors appeared his own sister, the businesswoman Sarah Cartes, who owed him about G. 330,000 million.
Minister Arnaldo Giuzzio indicated in the complaint that this would be the alleged proof that the Basa bank is actually owned by the former president.
Cartes entered the presidency with 25 companies and left it with 34. His assets went from G. 1.3 billion to G. 3.4 billion.
