Spanish justice targets bank for money laundering of dictator Pinochet

Almost 15 years after the death of former Chilean dictator General Augusto Pinochet, the victims of his brutal regime They try to hold him accountable and his associates. And now the victims seem to be taking one step closer to justice, even though the courtroom is halfway across the world.

This month, the National Court of Spain notified the Supreme Court of Chile that an investigation had been reopened in Madrid to find out whether Banco de Chile helped Pinochet and his associates launder millions of dollars abroad, according to court documents sent to lawyers involved in the dispute.

The complainants are led by the Fundación Presidente Allende and They represent more than 20,000 victims of the Pinochet dictatorship. The legal effort focused on funds allegedly expropriated by Pinochet and his associates and transferred to personal offshore accounts, in what the plaintiffs say are also acts of tax evasion and money laundering.

Spain was chosen for the trial because he was a pioneer in efforts over the past three decades to hold autocrats around the world accountable for their crimes in jurisdictions other than their own countries.

While Pinochet death under house arrest in Chile in 2006 without being tried, he was arrested in Great Britain in 1998 by order of a Spanish judge, Baltasar Garzón, who subsequently failed to convince the British government to extradite him to Madrid .

Instead, Britain allowed him to return home due to poor health. In 2011, a Chilean commission investigating torture, kidnappings, killings and other human rights violations during the dictatorship, he recorded more than 40,000 victims.

The story

Banco de Chile had successfully argued for years that Chile, rather than Spain, had the jurisdiction to investigate its Pinochet-related operations. But in Chile, justice closed an investigation for money laundering in 2013 without charging the general or anyone else.

According to a study commissioned by the Supreme Court of Chile, only $ 2 million of the $ 21 million identified as Pinochet’s personal fortune could be viewed as clean money.

Finally, in 2018, the Supreme Court of Chile ordered the return of US $ 1.6 million of Pinochet’s assets, while convicting three of his former generals for fraud related to public funds. Banco de Chile was never charged in Chile for money laundering, but paid Chilean authorities US $ 3.1 million in 2009 for administrative irregularities related to Pinochet’s money.

The plaintiffs hope to obtain in Spain a result at least comparable to that obtained in the United States, where the Riggs Bank agreed in 2005 to pay a fine of nearly 9 million dollars. This allowed the bank to avoid prosecution for failing to report transactions involving money transferred to Pinochet’s bank accounts.

A Senate investigation followed in the United States which also established that Banco de Chile was among the banks that helped Pinochet to access the US banking market.

Bleaching

In its report explaining why it is reopening the case, the Spanish court said Banco de Chile should set aside the 103 million dollars to cover the possible payment sought by the victims of the Pinochet regime. But the Spanish judge in charge of the case has not yet ordered the bank to post this deposit. The amount is based on the findings of the Spanish prosecution in 2009 after investigating possible money laundering by Pinochet.

Banco de Chile is represented in Spain by Cuatrecasas, one of the most important law firms in Spain.

None responded to requests for comment. Juan Garcés, a Spanish lawyer who works for the plaintiffs, said that if the bank refuses to cooperate with the investigation, even with an interim release order, the next step would be to get the Spanish courts to use agreements. bilateral to bind the prosecutors of other countries to freeze the assets held by the bank.

European legislation entered into force in December to improve judicial cooperation against fraud and money laundering.

PB