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The death of a key witness in a Colombia corruption investigation and his son's cyanide poisoning three days later resulted in the loss of a billion US dollars of a the largest bank fortunes in the world.
Luis Carlos Sarmiento, founder of the largest Colombian banking group, saw the value of his empire diminish as research on the Brazilian construction giant Odebrecht SA eclipsed its former partners, including Grupo Aval Acciones and Valores SA. both of Sarmiento.
Grupo Aval shares fell 27% in dollars this year, the worst performance among the 20 largest banks in Latin America.
The shares of Bancolombia, the main competitor of Aval, increased by 2% over the same period.
Jorge Enrique Pizano, controller of one of the Sarmiento companies, had warned early 2013 against suspicious payments from Odebrecht. He died this month from a heart attack, according to authorities. His son, returned from Spain to attend the funeral, died later of a poisoning under circumstances that remain mysterious.
In previous weeks, Pizano had expressed concerns about his safety, had fled to the United States, and had provided evidence of improper payments to journalists and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) of the United States. -United. After his death and that of his son, the liquidation of the Aval shares intensified.
Sarmiento's fortune has decreased by about US $ 1 billion to US $ 10,200 million since Pizano's death on November 8, and has been reduced by more than US $ 2,000 million this year.
Through new york
One of the contracts that Pizano alerted as a suspect was a payment of 2.7 million US dollars sent through New York to a bank located in Panama.
Semana, Colombia's leading news magazine, announced that in September, Pizano had had a four-hour meeting with FBI agents at the US Embassy. in Bogotá, where he delivered audios and documents related to the Ruta del Sol.
The FBI refused by email to confirm or deny the existence of an investigation.
Aval's net income increased 79% in the third quarter compared to the same period last year. This strong performance was overshadowed by the risks generated by the investigations, said Carlos Rodríguez, head of equities at Ultraserfinco broker in Bogotá.
"When international authorities, and especially the United States, are involved, the risk is that we do not know anything more," Rodríguez said by phone.
Aval's subsidiary, Corficolombiana, has teamed up with Odebrecht to build a section of the Ruta del Sol, a 621-kilometer highway linking central Colombia to the Caribbean coast. The company was canceled after Odebrecht admitted to paying bribes to win the contract.
In presentations to the US Securities and Exchange Commission and in investor appeals, Aval has repeatedly denied knowledge of its partner's illegal actions.
Pizano left audios recorded in the secrecy of his conversations with Néstor Humberto Martínez, a lawyer who had represented Aval, in which Pizano had expressed concerns about irregular payments.
In an interview with a Colombian television channel, Martinez, now the country's Attorney General, said he had conveyed Pizano's concerns to Sarmiento himself.
The Aval Investor Relations Department declined to comment on the Ruta del Sol case, but said the company's financial results this year were "pretty solid".
Odebrecht bribed politicians and officials who helped her to get contracts for the construction of power plants, highways, airports, dams and other public works, mainly in Latin America. The company has agreements with the authorities of the United States, Brazil, Switzerland, the Dominican Republic and Panama.
The Colombian case is ongoing, which has resulted in a series of damaging revelations.
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