'The Spanish Conection' Obiang and Melchor Esono Edjo the Big Corruption and Money Laundering Case

Facts

The Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the U.S. Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs issued its report, Money Laundering and Foreign Corruption: Enforcement and Effectiveness of the PATRIOT Act, Case Study Involving Riggs Bank. After extensive investigations and hearings, the subcommittee concluded that the total value of assets held by Riggs amounted to nearly $700 million, making “Equatorial Guinea” the bank’s single largest relationship. There were more than 60 accounts held by government entities, senior officials, and family members.

The report found that, for years, Riggs had disregarded its anti-money laundering obligations with regard to Equatorial Guinea and had turned a “blind eye” to evidence that the bank was handling the proceeds of foreign corruption. They had allowed, and sometimes actively facilitated, suspicious financial activity.

In one sequence of suspicious transactions highlighted in the report, approximately $26.5 million was transferred in sixteen payments over a three-and-a-half year period directly from the official Equatoguinean governmental oil revenues account into a private account maintained at Banco Santander in Spain, by Kalunga Company S.A., a company the Subcommittee found reason to believe might be owned in whole or in part by President Obiang. The authorized signatories for the governmental oil revenues account were the president and either his son or his nephew.

Investigations undertaken by Open Society Justice Initiative partner organization Asociación Pro Derechos Humanos de España (APDHE) revealed close correlations in timing between at least five of these transfers and nine real estate purchases in Madrid, Gijon, and Las Palmas de Gran Canaria in the Canary Islands on behalf of the President, members of his family, and other close associates.

APDHE submitted a Querella (criminal complaint) asking that a criminal investigation to be opened into the allegations.  As widely reported in the Spanish media, police inquiries have uncovered extensive documentation suggesting the use of multiple intermediaries and a string of shell companies and real estate purchases to divert millions of dollars from the Equatoguinean Treasury to the benefit of senior officials, including the President’s nephew, a former Finance Minister, and the President’s son-in-law, the Delegate Minister of Civil Aviation.

The investigating judge ordered the pre-trial detention without bail of Vladimir, Yulia and Igor Kokorev on charges of money laundering. Allegedly, they are behind some of the financial, corporate, and real estate transactions related to the official Equatoguinean governmental oil revenues account, including Kalunga Company S.A .The investigation continues.

Open Society Justice Initiative Involvement

The Open Society Justice Initiative is assisting APDHE, a Spanish human rights organization, in investigating the facts and preparing the legal arguments in the case.

Arguments

Money Laundering. The Spanish Penal Code makes it a crime for anyone to acquire, convert or transfer property knowing that such property was purchased by the proceeds from a serious crime, or for anyone to perform any other act to conceal or disguise its unlawful origin or to aid another person who has participated in the crime in evading the legal consequence of the crime. The defendants in this case regularly diverted funds from the Equatoguinean Treasury by ordering Riggs Bank to make the various transfers to private accounts held by a shell company controlled by the defendants and the President of Equatorial Guinea. The fact that the embezzlement may have been committed abroad is irrelevant because the Spanish Penal Code grants jurisdiction to Spanish courts over money laundering cases occurring in Spain, regardless of where the underlying crime occurred (...).

APDHE v. Obiang Family
Source: Open Society Justice Initiative and Open Society Foundations, we are based in Abuja, Berlin, Brussels, London, Mexico City, New York City, The Hague, and Washington, D.C.
https://www.justiceinitiative.org/litigation/apdhe-v-obiang-family

International Report
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1c_OFQBRzb3dge8-sMRiqIW2COBKWodH9/view

-----
By Jean-François Ghaiz - International Report