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In a virtual hearing, the Attorney General’s Office formally accused the businessman from Barranquilla Álex Saab Morán, identified as an alleged front man of the Nicolás Maduro regime, in Venezuela.
Before a specialized judge in Barranquilla, the Attorney General’s Office charged Saab, who is detained in a Cape Verde prison, awaiting an extradition to the United States that would be in the final stage.
He also accused the accountant of one of the Saab companies, Devis José Mendoza Lapeira, for alleged illicit financial maneuvers that represented losses for the State and led to an increase in its assets.
The prosecutor in charge of the case pointed out that Saab was a legal representative, a member of the board of directors and a shareholder of the company Shatex SA, a firm with which he allegedly participated in maneuvers to “evade tax and customs responsibilities and give the appearance of legality to an irregular scheme of exports and imports “.
(Read also: US denies torturing Álex Saab to sign extradition)
According to the Prosecutor’s Office, these irregular movements were sponsored by the accountant Mendoza Lapeira, who, supposedly, he used his trade to “hide, transform and manage different illegal activities.”
For these facts, both Saab and its accountant will go to trial for the crimes of money laundering, illicit enrichment of individuals, conspiracy to commit a crime, aggravated fraud and fictitious export or import.
The Prosecutor’s Office found in its investigation that the company Shatex SA would be a paper company through which the illegal movements were made.
Among the tests, the agency verified, for example, that the company had an unusual growth of 923 percent in 2007, disproportionate rise if one takes into account that between 2004 and 2006 they had losses and income had fallen by 33 percent.
This firm, says the Prosecutor’s Office, ceased to exist in 2010. However, a year later it continued to export and buy and sell operations. In 2011 it even channeled the outflow of 2,000 million pesos abroad through the exchange system Colombian.
On the other hand, the Prosecutor’s Office found in the firm double accounting between 2007 and 2008. Thus, the company showed Dian accounts in which it reported less income to evade taxes. However, the financial sector was showing higher figures to expose sufficient economic capacity.
(Also: The property of Álex Saab was extinguished)
The Shatex firm also allegedly made fictitious imports in which the output of more than 25,300 million pesos was sustained for advance import payments that never entered the country.
And between 2004 and 2011, the Prosecutor’s Office found that the company entered Colombia, under the argument of being a refund of foreign currency for its exports, about 16.4 million dollars, about 33.55 billion pesos, which came mostly from Venezuela. This international flow of cash, says the prosecuting body, is not justified.
JUSTICE
On twitter: @JusticiaET
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