Report on Ecuador and the Panama Papers

ecuadorreview.com reported six Ecuadorian journalists from the daily newspapers El Universo and El Comercio were part of the global investigation known as the ‘Panama Papers.’ Coordinated by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), reporters had access to more than 11 million documents leaked from Mossack Fonseca (MF), a company providing offshore services, i.e. the creation of companies in tax havens. According to the ICIJ, MF’s clients in Ecuador include the former President of the Central Bank, Pedro Delgado, and the current Attorney General, Galo Chiriboga.

The case of Pedro Delgado. After it was discovered that he had falsified his qualification as an economist, Pedro Delgado, former President of the Central Bank of Ecuador and a cousin of Rafael Correa, fled to Miami in 2013, where he lives in luxury. In 2015, Delgado was sentenced to 8 years in prison for embezzlement after illegally granting $800,000 in credit to an Argentine citizen. According to the Panama Papers, Pedro Delgado obtained a mortgage for his home in Miami for $190,000 with the assistance of the Panamanian law firm. “In 2012 an MF client, Austrobank Panama SA, a banking subsidiary of Eljuri Group, one of the largest business conglomerates in Ecuador, granted a mortgage to Delgado and his wife María Verónica Endara. At the time, she was the Ecuadorian Vice-Consul General in Miami. The mortgage was for the purchase of a house in North Miami Beach.” The ICIJ goes on to state that “an agent of Austrobank emailed MF seeking legal advice. The first law firm MF approached declined to process the loan, but MF found another lawyer who processed the mortgage in Miami. Delgado has confirmed to the Univisión Network that he was the owner of the property in Miami.” Read Article

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