The Swiss Federation of Lawyers has opened a criminal-administrative file on Dante Canonica, the director of the Panamanian foundation Lucum, in whose name the account of Juan Carlos I was opened in the Geneva bank Mirabaud & Cie in which the then head of state received 64.5 million euros from the Government of Saudi Arabia in 2008. The file will determine whether the lawyer and creator of the structure in which the fortune of the king emeritus was hidden complied with the standards required of lawyers who act as financial intermediaries .
The initiative to investigate the performance of Canonica in the management of the 64.5 million donated by the Ministry of Finance of Saudi Arabia has been taken by the Self-Regulatory Body of the Swiss Federation of Lawyers (OAR-FSA), sources told EL PAÍS close to the case.
This body was created in 2000, brings together more than 11,000 Swiss lawyers and assumes the functions provided by law in the fight against money laundering.
Their investigations are subject to the supervision of FINMA, the federal authority that regulates and supervises the Swiss financial market (an entity similar to the National Securities Market Commission, CNMV, in Spain).
The files conclude in most cases in economic sanctions, but above all they cause reputational damage to the affected firms.
Canonica did not travel to Saudi Arabia nor did it take steps to verify why the Ministry of Finance of that country sent, on August 8, 2008, in the name of the Lucum account, the 64.5 million to Juan Carlos I. The director de Lucum trusted the word of the external manager of the account, Arturo Fasana, when he told him that the money was a “
pure gift
” from King Abdalá Bin Abdelaziz to his Spanish “brother”, without verifying some.
He did not attempt to speak to Al Jubeir, then Saudi Arabia's ambassador to Washington, who allegedly told Fasana of the money's arrival.
He also did not report the operation to any of the institutions that pursue money laundering in Switzerland.
Canonica also knew that the money had not been declared to the Spanish Treasury.
For three years Dante Canonica was charged by the prosecutor Yves Bertossa for an alleged aggravated crime of money laundering, which was finally filed.
The representative of the Public Prosecutor's Office reproached the lawyer for his actions as director of the Lucum Foundation and in his file on the investigation he highlighted "the spirit of concealment" of the main actors in the case.
From Arturo Fasana, external account manager for the king emeritus;
Corinna Larsen, Juan Carlos' ex-partner, to whom he transferred the money to an account in Nassau (Bahamas);
and Canonica itself.
"The use of a foundation (Lucum) and of domiciled companies by the different protagonists demonstrated a desire to hide," Bertossa highlighted in his resolution.
The Swiss lawyer, in addition to being the Panamanian screen for Lucum, informed Juan Carlos I about the movements of the account, traveled to Madrid to dispatch with his beneficiary and was informed of the donation of the 65 million that the then head of state made to Larsen, in June 2012, shortly after the Botswana elephant hunting scandal broke.
According to his statement, it was Juan Carlos I who asked him during a meeting at the La Zarzuela palace to create a structure to receive "a donation" from Saudi Arabia.
The lawyer is a specialist in financial, corporate and wealth management law.
He himself constituted several of the 12 instrumental companies in tax havens that the German consultant used to acquire millionaire properties.
Regulation and risk profiles
The OAR obliges independent lawyers and notaries in Switzerland who work in financial intermediation to have in their offices an internal regulation of action approved by this institution.
Each lawyer marks his level of risk and his demands based on the profiles of the clients.
Thus, determining criteria are whether or not the person is a PEP (Politically Exposed Person), the amounts to be administered or the position that the client's country occupies on the list of corruption in the world.
It is the lawyers assigned to the OAR who examine their colleagues and determine if the established criteria have been met.
The Swiss prosecutor investigated why, before the closure of Juan Carlos I's account, 3.5 million were transferred to the account of Canonica's Dolphin company at the Swiss bank Pictet & Cie in Nassau (Bahamas), the same tax haven where they hid the 65 million that the king emeritus sent to Larsen.
"I have regularized my situation before the Treasury of Geneva," replied the lawyer when Bertossa questioned him about that income that, according to him, was authorized by the then head of state.
Both Canonica and Fasana, whom the former advised at his wealth management company Rhône Gestion, drew their fees from Lucum's account.
The first for managing the foundation and the second for managing the assets.
In the movements of the account, from its opening in 2008 to its closure in 2012, the concepts and amounts that both charged for their services appear.
Canonica has not responded to the questions sent by this newspaper.
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