The Swiss authorities have confirmed to the National Court that the family of the former ambassador of Spain in Venezuela Raúl Morodo has millions of bank accounts in the Swiss country. Judge Santiago Pedraz, who investigates a plot of corruption in international commercial transactions, money laundering and tax crimes in the alleged looting by the Morodo family of 5.4 million to the Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA, sent a rogatory commission to Switzerland (and others to Panama and Portugal) requiring information on whether Raúl Morodo, his son Alejo, and the wives of both, among others involved, have accounts in that country. An advance of the rogatory commission reveals that there are and that they have been active for years.
The judge studies claiming more exhaustive information from the accounts to Switzerland and is awaiting the documentation requested from a dozen banks in Portugal, Switzerland, Panama and Spain
The judge is now studying to demand more exhaustive information from the accounts to Switzerland and is awaiting documentation and extracts requested from a dozen banks, registries and notaries from Panama, Switzerland, Portugal and Spain. The exdiplomático's own wife, Cristina Cañeque, admitted having money in Switzerland when, in 2015, she made a "voluntary declaration" before the Spanish Tax Agency in which she recognized that she had an equity in accounts in Switzerland "of almost seven million euros" . This is stated in reports of the Police Economic Crime Unit (the UDEF) incorporated into the summary.
Statement by Raúl Morodo before Judge Santiago Pedraz of the National Court on May 22, 2019.
The network investigated by the judge and the prosecutor Anticorrupción Ana Cuenca, uncovered by EL PAÍS, has surfaced a vast real estate assets acquired in Spain with illicit money coming mostly from the public oil company PDVSA. One of those involved in the plot, Juan Carlos Márquez Cabrera, the exalted position of the oil company that took his life six months ago after being questioned by the judge, owned with his wife 15 properties in Spain.
Seven people, among them the four mentioned members of the Morodo family, and nine Spanish and foreign companies, are involved and under the magnifying glass of Judge Pedraz for obtaining several tens of millions of euros from the oil company (around 30) in return of advice pretended in Portugal and other European countries. PDVSA is the main Venezuelan industry.
The summary of the Morodo case is the result of a complaint by the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor filed last January. And uncover a sophisticated plot of money laundering with two differentiated but connivent fronts for looting. On the one hand, the Morodo family, as a recipient of at least 5.4 million between 2008 and 2014 as payment by PDVSA for “unreal and unjustified” advice in Europe, as Anticorruption qualifies them in their complaint.
And, on the other, the front led by the late Juan Carlos Márquez Cabrera, general secretary of Corporate Entities, governing body of the oil company, along with his partner Carlos Prada and the wives of both. Márquez Cabrera, who hanged himself the day after he was arrested at Barajas airport from the United States and testifying before Judge Pedraz, is the person who on behalf of the oil company signed the false advisory contracts in favor of Alejo Morodo and gave the green light to payments.
Police have proven that the Morodo family received a total of 5.4 million from false advisory contracts with the oil company
The police investigation proves that those involved "used a complex corporate structure" to get the money. Alejo Morodo created in Panama the company Furnival Barristers Corp and in Spain the company Aequitas Abogados y Consultores Asociados, SL And established accounts in Panama, Switzerland, Portugal and Spain to hide the transfer of money, according to the summary, which has had access This newspaper.
The criminal dynamic was as follows: the money left the oil company with the signature of Márquez, passed through Panamanian society, from there it went to Portugal or Switzerland and finally ended up in Spain, although the agents are still looking for money abroad. The UDEF has discovered that the money began to come out in 2008 of the Venezuelan oil giant bound for the Morodo, just the year after Raúl Morodo ceased as ambassador to Venezuela of the Government of former President José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero. Morodo, a university professor, played an active role in the democratic transition at the hands of the Popular Front of the former mayor of Madrid Enrique Tierno.
One of the highest items from PDVSA arriving in the Morodo family (2.7 million euros) came to an account of Banco Sabadell on behalf of Aequitas Abogados, on November 3, 2011. The money came “directly from PDVSA” , reveals the summary. Another item amounting to 600,000 euros came from PDVSA Ibérica, a European subsidiary of the oil company. But before finishing that money in the pockets of Alejo Morodo, he spent, with a view to camouflage its origin, for an account that the Panamanian firm Furnival Barrister CORP has in Switzerland. The same happened on July 23, 2013 with another remittance of 1.2 million from Credit Suisse of Switzerland.
In his statement before the judge, before taking his own life, Márquez Cabrera pointed out that the advisory contracts he signed with Alejo Morodo obeyed the orders of the then Minister of Petroleum of the Government of Hugo Chávez, Rafael Ramírez, currently hidden somewhere of Europe and sought by justice for allegedly looting PDVSA coffers. "He told me to sign contracts with them and that Raúl Morodo would only be accountable to him," Márquez explained to Judge Pedraz.
Two cousins of Ramírez, Diego Salazar and Bastidas Ramírez, hid in the Private Bank of Andorra millionaire accounts that supposedly came from the payment of commissions from companies that obtained contracts from the oil company. Ramírez recently denied in an interview with this newspaper any type of corruption in the ten years he was in charge of the PDVSA.
Investigators suspect that Raul Morodo, 85, who was also Spain's ambassador to Portugal between 1995 and 1999, used his good relations with senior Venezuelan Chavism officials to get money from the oil company for him and his son. Change of false advice. Morodo Sr. did not receive money directly in his accounts, but there are transfers totaling 634,000 euros collected on heels and coming from his son Alejo's accounts that are directly nurtured with funds from the oil company.
Broad heritage
PDVSA's other way out of money for this plot is the one that affects the late Márquez Cabrera and his partner Carlos Prada. The dynamic was similar to that used with the Morodo family: Márquez invented contracts with his partner as a supposed advisor and sent him money from the oil company through another complex structure of companies, including some merchants of Morodo's son.
The Consultora Alcander, SL, 50% owned by Prada, has invested in real estate between 2009 and 2013 a total of 14,047,224 euros allegedly from PDVSA, according to the summary. Another eleven million euros in real estate were invested by Márquez Cabrera before his death. He told the judge that during his years as a senior oil company he received a salary of $ 15,000 per month and attributed part of his enormous assets to loans made by his father.
Strange payments to Portuguese politicians
Portugal is one of the countries to which Judge Pedraz has requested information on companies and banking movements. Judge Pedraz has been struck by money transfers made from companies in Raúl and Alejo Morodo between 2011 and 2016 to “relevant political positions in Portugal” for a total amount of 374,000 euros, as stated in the summary. There are also payments of almost 70,000 euros between January and March 2014 for companies based in foreign countries, including Maltese merchant Prime Services LTD and March Usa LTD.
The investigation has also focused on the Swiss heritage of María Cristina Cañeque, wife of Raúl Morodo, and specifically in three Credit Suisse accounts that, she said, opened them in 2008. In 2016 she regularized funds with the Treasury for the amount of 6.4 million euros.
“Again, the opening of these accounts” (those of Cristina Cañeque in Switzerland) points out the UDEF; coincides temporarily (year 2008) with the beginning of commercial relations between PDVSA and those investigated, and one year after his resignation [from Morodo] as ambassador ”.
Raúl Morodo told the judge that his wife's societies, as well as the houses and real estate he owns in Madrid and other parts of Spain, come from a family inheritance.
The tax regularization of Morodo's wife came months after an editor of this newspaper showed his son Alejo the fictitious contracts signed by him with PDVSA that have motivated his arrest and the investigation of his family. Then, the ambassador's son accepted professional secrecy and justified that he had constituted in Spain a subsidiary of the oil company for its relations with Spain and Portugal.
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