The lawyer Juan Ramón Collado (left) and his brother Antonio, in a file image.Juan Pablo Zamora / CUARTOSCURO
Juan Ramón Collado, known as the power attorney for defending personalities such as former Mexican president Enrique Peña Nieto, of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), collected 45.9 million dollars in Andorra from a business network used by the cartel from Sinaloa to launder in this European Principality, according to an investigation by EL PAÍS.
Fourteen Mexican companies with an account in the Banca Privada d'Andorra (BPA) to which the organization of Joaquín
El Chapo
Guzmán
resorted to launder their money,
transferred this sum between 2009 and 2013 to the deposits of the lawyer in this financial institution.
The companies were supposedly instrumental, had no real activity and were also used by other groups and organizations for money laundering.
Antoni Riestra, Collado's lawyer in Andorra, denies any relationship between his client and the Sinaloa cartel.
"The fact that different clients of the exchange houses shared an internal circuit to transfer their money does not imply a link," explains the lawyer by email.
More information
Andorra questions the origin of 120 million of the lawyer of Peña Nieto
Peña Nieto's lawyer used a scheme of shell companies in Mexico to collect money in Andorra
Collado's alleged money laundering scheme started with a cash deposit in a Mexican exchange house.
The capital was then transferred to an account at BPA in the name of a holding company.
And later it landed in one of the lawyer's deposits in the Andorran entity through an internal transfer (sending from one account to another in the same bank).
The labyrinthine financial shed left no trace and was designed to shield Collado's identity, according to the Andorran Police.
Corrupt schemes with no relation to each other such as Odebrecht, the Brazilian construction giant that starred in the largest bribery network in Latin America, used similar opaque cobwebs to hide the crime money in Andorra.
The Mexican companies that remitted funds to Collado in the BPA are listed in the list of shell companies that the cartel used to launder for a decade in Andorra, according to a report by the Mexican Financial Intelligence Unit advanced by the newspaper
Milenio
.
Collado entered the BPA with funds from companies that allegedly also laundered for the organization of El Chapo. These are the companies Madvysion, SA de CV (which transferred 10.7 million to the lawyer), Riu Construcciones, SA de CV (7.1 million), Servicios Especializados Icall, SA de CV (5.7 million) and Textiline Collection , SA de CV (5.4 million). Also, Varys Comercial SA de CV (3.6 million) and Grupo Liztik, SA de CV (3.5 million), according to a ruling by the Andorran judge investigating Collado since 2015.
Other companies that transferred money to the lawyer in Andorra and that, allegedly, also laundered the cartel's money were Distribuciones JDB, SA de CV (which paid Collado 2.2 million dollars), Grupo Macrobay, SA de CV (2.2 million million), Tessa Textiles SA de CV (2.5 million), Enterprise Gamki, SA de CV (707,594 euros). The payroll is completed with Diseños Textiles Dug SA de CV (690,622 euros), Amber Global SA de CV (632,395 euros), Distribuidora Comercial Franwi SA de CV (505,447 euros) and Gallaxy Real Estate SA de CV (444,774 euros).
In order to investigate who is hiding behind Collado's assets in Andorra, the magistrate in May 2017 asked investigators to identify the Mexican citizens who sent money to the lawyer "because it is an essential link to determine the origin of the funds."
The judge then requested information on 23 accounts in the BPA - among which are the 14 used by the Sinaloan cartel - to find out the identity of their authentic representatives.
A branch of Banca Privada d'Andorra, in March 2015. REUTERS (Albert Gea)
The movement of the magistrate aims to clarify the ownership of the complicated skein of accounts and companies that Collado used to move his flow of funds. A financial scheme that, according to the investigations, connects the Mexican companies that transferred funds to the lawyer with the Mexican exchange houses Tiber, B & B and Eurofimex and the trust company Grupo Fidemont.
The Andorran instructor has criticized Collado for avoiding references to exchange houses and trust companies when he declared in the Principality in July 2016. The influential lawyer then connected his assets with a successful business career. He told the magistrate that his businesses included a law firm that employed 40 professionals and that it had 10 public entities and the Pemex union in its client portfolio. Also, a chain of pawnshops that his father founded in the nineties of the last century and that reported an interest income of 84 million dollars in 14 years.
Two of the companies that transferred funds to the lawyer's accounts between 2009 and 2012 to the BPA -Enterprisse Gamki, SA de CV and Varys Comercial SA de CV- received public contracts for a total of $ 120,000 from the Technological University of Nezahualcóyotl (UTN ), which depends on the State of Mexico, as revealed by this newspaper.
The progress of the investigations into the Andorran wealth of the lawyer - an investigation that began in 2015 and which now exceeds 17,500 documents - has triggered doubts about the origin of the money.
The latest police report incorporated into the case, from February 2020, abounds in the possible criminal origin of the funds.
And it puts the focus of suspicion on the 90 million dollars that Collado entered the Principality through exchange houses and trust companies.
Investigators estimate that Collado has not been able to prove that he is the true owner of this money.
"All these elements are indications that presumably a large part of the funds entered could have their origin in criminal activity," indicates the latest report from the Anti-Money Laundering Criminal Investigation Unit III of the Andorran Police.
Antoni Riestra, Collado's lawyer in the European country, defends the legality of the fortune.
“His funds are of totally legal origin, the result of his financial and professional activity and family savings.
He is the sole and last beneficiary, ”says Riestra, who denies any relationship between Collado and the Sinaloa cartel.
Collado's lawyer criticizes the investigation into his client in the Principality. "The Andorran police reports are not impartial and only create confusion and misrepresentation in a tendentious way," he says.
Along with the 14 companies used by the Sinaloa cartel to launder in Andorra that transferred funds to Collado, the lawyer's accounts in the Principality also received money from seven other companies with an account in the BPA. A representative of one of these firms, Temple Corporation CV, admits in conversation with this newspaper that its company was instrumental (without activity) and that it acted as a bridge to transfer money to other accounts. “The Andorran banks recommended their clients in Latin America until 2012 not to send money directly from their accounts, but to use the exchange houses. All that has already changed ”, explains this expert in creating tax structures.
The legal case in the European country against Collado has suffered a stormy road since it started, in 2015, when the Andorran judge Canòlich Mingorance seized the lawyer's funds.
In 2018, the magistrate provisionally shelved the case after the Mexican Prosecutor's Office - still under the Government of Peña Nieto - exonerated the lawyer in a report revealed by EL PAIS that argued that the Mexican authorities had opened an investigation and could not prove the origin illicit of your money, a key requirement to sentence for money laundering.
This same strategy to archive the Andorran Justice investigations was used in the cases of influential politicians who hid fortunes of unspeakable origin in the Principality.
Collado and former president Salinas de Gortari, in 2016. Saúl López / CUARTOSCURO
Collado's arrest in July 2019 in Mexico gave an unexpected turn to the case.
The lawyer was arrested for money laundering and organized crime (similar crimes for which his case was provisionally filed in Andorra).
The arrest forced the reopening of the case in the Principality and the embargo of 93 million dollars.
The name of lawyer of the powerful is not free.
Along with Peña Nieto, the lawyer has defended Mexican figures, such as Pemex union leader Carlos Romero Deschamps;
the ex-governor of Quintana Roo, the PRI Mario Villanueva;
o Raúl Salinas de Gortari, businessman and brother of the former president of Mexico Carlos Salinas de Gortari.
The fine print of transactions
The fourteen Mexican companies to which the Sinaloan cartel appealed and which were also used to transfer 45.9 million dollars to the accounts of the lawyer Juan Ramón Collado in the Banca Privada d'Andorra (BPA) opened accounts in this entity to enter the supposed benefits of its activity. At least that is what the representatives of these companies indicated to the bank in the 'know your client' (know your client, in English), a questionnaire that asks applicants to open an account what is the origin of their funds. This is the detail of the transactions:
Madvysion, SA de CV The account in the BPA in the name of this company ordered 19 transfers between 2009 and 2010 for a total of 10.7 million dollars to the deposit of Collado 441952.
Riu Construcciones, SA de CV Between 2011 and 2012, the firm authorized 11 transfers in the BPA to two accounts of the lawyer. It also sent funds to two deposits linked to the lawyer in the Andorran entity on behalf of the companies Constellation Investments and Marathon Corporation. Collado collected 7.1 million in this way.
Grupo Liztik, SA de CV The account in the name of this company ordered four transfers for a value of 3.5 million dollars between 2010 and 2011 to a Collado deposit in the BPA. The Mexican N. Villegas appeared at the Andorran bank as attorney-in-fact for this company when she became a client of the entity, on February 22, 2010. Villegas justified that the money from her commercial activity would enter the Principality.
Servicios Especializados Icall, SA de CV On behalf of this company with an account in the BPA, Collado received seven transfers for a value of 5.7 million dollars between 2012 and 2013. The lawyer deposited the funds in two accounts and in a deposit in the name of his accounts where the mercantile Constellation Investments and Marathon Corporation appeared.
Enterprise Gamki, SA de CV The Mexican CT Escalona is listed as a representative of this account in the BPA that ordered two transfers in 2012 for a total of $ 707,594 to the firm of Collado Constellation Investments. Escalona appeared at the BPA as a trader by profession and sole administrator of Enterprise Gamki SA de CV
Gallaxy Real Estate, SA de CV The accountant E. Gutiérrez, 43, was the representative of the account in the name of this company in the BPA that transferred 444,774 euros to the lawyer of Peña Nieto in May 2012.
Varys comercial, SA de CV The firm ordered ten transfers for a total of 3.6 million to one of Collado's accounts between 2009 and 2010.
Grupo Macrobay, SA de CV The company that appeared as the owner of an account in the BPA with this denomination sent 2.2 million to three accounts of the lawyer between 2010 and 2011.
Diseños Textiles Dug, SA de CV Collado's account in the BPA of the company Constellation Investments received in February 2013 a total of 690,622 dollars from this Mexican firm. A. Escamilla was listed as the attorney-in-fact for the company.
Distribuciones JDB, SA de CV The BPA account of this company, whose representative was the Mexican JDV Rangel, transferred 2.2 million in April 2010 to two deposits linked to Collado in the name of the companies Amilou Investments and Turinga and to the account of the lawyer 441952.
Textiline Collection, SA de CV Eight transfers for a value of 5.4 million ended in four deposits controlled by Collado. RA Mendoza appeared as representative in the account in the BPA of Textiline Collection SA de CV
Amber Global, SA de CV An account in the name of this company ordered a transfer of 632,395 euros to a Collado deposit linked to the merchant Constellation Investments.
Distribuidora Comercial Franwi, SA de CV The firm ordered two transfers worth 505,447 euros to two Collado accounts in the BPA in April 2011.
Tessa Textiles, SA de CV A total of 2.5 million from this company with an account in the An Andorran bank went to two deposits controlled by the lawyer in January 2013.
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