Quito –
General David Proaño, former director of Isspol, assured EL UNIVERSO that the investments of the Police Social Security Institute, which exceed $ 600 million, were made legally, are guaranteed and that the questions made in recent months respond to a “media scandal.”
In an interview with Diario EL UNIVERSO, Proaño explained that his connection to Isspol occurred in 2010 as a member of the Higher Council of the Institute, representing the officers on active duty, while he worked in other dependencies. Only in 2015 was he appointed director for a period of two years, but due to legal changes and the lack of a new shortlist by the Ministry of Government, he remained in office until 2019.
He indicated that in 2018, when Minister María Paula Romo arrived, she presented all the financial information to the ministerial delegate, but “I have never been called to ask what the problem is, there were two meetings at my request due to the media scandal.”
His separation from the police is “an illegality without a name,” he said.
He considered that there was a loss to Isspol’s assets of $ 20 million, when the new administration accepted the proposal to renegotiate the external debt of the Ecuadorian government; by then, the Isspol had $ 161 million of these bonds.
How did you meet Jorge Chérrez and his company IBCorp, the arranger with whom Isspol invested more than $ 500 million?
I met him in 2015 when he made the proposal for the operation swap or exchange of bonds before the Superior Council. His proposal came like others, openly.
Did you prepare a report on this proposal?
No, the Superior Council decided to accept the operation. The internal debt bonds that Isspol had were intended to generate liquidity.
Did Isspol issue domestic debt bonds for $ 327 million, were Global Deposit Notes issued, and was the underlying asset foreign debt bonds?
So is.
¿Purchased by IBCorp?
IBCorp is a structuring company that had several people and institutions that were the owners of the external debt bonds.
For this reason, the account is opened in the Picaval house where those payments are deposited, only that it is in the name of Nats Cumco (Citibank) and the Isspol has no support to claim that money.
There must be a subaccount that is in the name of Isspol. Who to ask is not asked.
Do you ensure that there is a subaccount in the name of Isspol?
I am not assuring that, what I am saying is that you should ask the right person, Citibank or the arranger.
And you as a representative of Isspol, when the operation was made, did you not make sure of that before investing $ 327 million?
That is assured from the beginning.
You. you didn’t make sure you knew the subaccount in the Isspol’s name?
It is in the name of Isspol, I am sure that on the subject of the operation swap the beneficiary of the underlying assets is Isspol. You have to ask Nats Cumco in a formal way.
And why do you think that Mr. Chérrez has not explained this?
Because they haven’t asked.
He has given several interviews.
Yes, but they are interviews in which he tries to distort a lot of things.
Citibank issued a letter in November and suspended payments to safeguard Isspol’s assets until the issue is clarified.
He did so because of the conversations he had with officials from the Ministry of Government and the Police Command. The money is frozen in Citibank until the investigation is supposedly cleared up, what I know of is not the judicial investigation that is in the Prosecutor’s Office.
In the payments of that operation swap $ 53 million in paper was accepted instead of cash.
Is not true.
Mr. Chérrez said it: $ 53 million in paper and $ 28 million in cash.
Sure, but it is not that it corresponds to the payment. One possibility was that Isspol could reinvest to generate additional returns, and it did so because it had no need for liquidity.
Do you defend that operation?
It does not have any irregularity vice, so much so that the assets can now be returned to Isspol.
Isspol has pointed out that IBCorp has not yet done so.
If they tell me that they are going to return my investment asset, in the face of all the scandal that has been done, well, I get it back and that problem is finally over.
On the issue of repos in which $ 216 million were invested there are also arrears.
The repos are several operations with different amounts and terms, in which the performance guarantee is Ecuador’s foreign debt bonds. There are overdue operations since January 2020 and the question is why was the breach not notified? The new Isspol administration did it only in August, that is negligence.
One of those operations was with Luis Domínguez Viteri in a personal capacity for $ 2.6 million.
In a personal capacity in no way.
Valpacífico observed it, and then you informed Valpacífico that it was canceled, but later it was done with Rusticusi, whose representative is Domínguez himself, also manager of Ventura Casa de Valores.
It is false, everything ends with the approval of the Board of Directors of Isspol.
He admitted it in an interview and confirmed the new operation. Do the former manager of Valpacífico, José Ibáñez, and Domínguez lie?
I’m not saying they lie, I understand that Domínguez is referring to as a representative of Rusticusi.
It was Luis Dominguez in a personal capacity and you as a representative of Isspol. One wonders how to do such an operation for $ 2.6 million.
Yes I would also ask myself the same thing.
Thats why I ask you.
He would have to review because he would not have the ability to do so.
Isspol invested some $ 68 million in loans through trust investments.
They are not loans, that is another mistake.
The companies that received the money admitted it. They needed flow, they began to see options and they learned that Isspol financed through trusts.
So is.
The Superintendency of Banks observed these operations.
They were legal. Isspol was a beneficiary, there was no legal prohibition. He also said they were high-risk investments and arranged for them to be divested.
Because they considered them loans.
The report says that ‘it is more like a loan’, but they are assignments of fiduciary rights with a repurchase agreement and I would dare to say that the trusts have guarantees well above the investment.
Why were these trusts not registered with the Superintendency of Companies?
They are registered in the commercial register.
Why are some trusts registered with the Superintendency and others not?
It would be necessary to see if the legal obligation to register them was legally established.
Didn’t you, as the director of Isspol, feel that you should register with the Institute as a beneficiary?
The director of Isspol is not the one who determines that convenience or not.
All these operations were carried out with two fiduciaries, Heilmtrust and Latintrust, it would seem that the procedure had to be done with them.
It is not true, the stock market is so small that the few who work always appear in each investment process, that does not mean that there is a direction.
They are the only ones.
The constitution processes are not carried out by Isspol, the person who receives the financing is the one who decides how and where to do it.
You have been notified of an investigation into these investments by Isspol.
The complaints filed in the Prosecutor’s Office are complaints that have neither head nor tail, they are investments backed by contracts, in the event of a breach it is necessary to demand payments through civil channels. None has started it.
How should investments in repurchase and exchange operations be recovered?
The person who is the structuring agent and its custodian (Jorge Chérrez) has already said publicly ‘Isspol tell me the account in which I return the bonds and tomorrow they are placed’. It’s not that I’m going to give you my bank account to deposit the bonds. For the issue of external debt, they will have to give an account in the systems that administer these papers, but if Isspol does not have an account in those systems, where do you want them to deposit it? Regarding internal debt, you have to indicate in the Central Bank account in which you are going to deposit them. (I)
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