[NYTr] Corruption, Spain: Sintel Fraud - Aznar Must Respond

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

Granma International - Dec 27, 2007
http://www.granma.cu/ingles/2007/diciembre/juev27/52aznar-i.html


Sintel fraud: Aznar must respond

BY JEAN-GUY ALLARD

IN April 1996, just one month after José María Aznar became prime
minister of Spain, the state-owned telephone company sold a prosperous
enterprise, Sintel to Mastec Inc., owned by businessman and CIA agent
Jorge Mas Canosa.

The transaction led to serious accusations against Aznar of having
given Sintel, which employed more than 1,800 people, to Mastec as a
thank-you gift for Mas Canosa’s open and public support of Aznar when
he was the Popular Party (PP) candidate. The latter traveled to Central
America from Miami in November 1995 on the private jet of the former,
who was then "chairman" of the Cuban-American National Foundation
(CANF).

José Antonio "Toñín" Llamas, a member of the CANF executive committee
and of its paramilitary committee —a man closely linked to the bombs
that were planted in 1997 in Havana hotels administered by Spanish
companies, and who participated in organizing Aznar’s trip to Miami—
has stated that Jorge Mas Canosa allocated tens of thousands of dollars
both for financing those terrorist attacks and for the PP leader’s
presidential campaign.

Those affected by Sintel said recently that after eight years of
suffering and waiting, they consider that it was disappointing and the
"result of pressure" that Madrid Judge Santiago Pedraz decided in a
second ruling to drop major charges against the phone company and not
to bring charges against Aznar.

Jorge Mas Santos, current "chairman" of the CANF, and his brother, Juan
Carlos, both of them sons of Jorge Mas Canosa (now deceased) are the
ones who will have to answer to the Spanish justice system in place of
Aznar, after the National Court brought charges against them for fraud
totaling 59.4 million euros, related to Sintel’s bankruptcy.

Judge Pedraz alleged that the two sons of Mas Canosa, the "top
executives" of the Miami company Mastec, "embezzled large amounts of
money" from Sintel "for the Mas family."

Jorge Más Santos is also the head of the CANF, a Miami-based group that
has sponsored countless terrorist actions against Cuba.

In his ruling, the judge said that the Mas family had transferred
Sintel stock to several corporations in "fiscal paradises" to be
subsequently used for the "patrimonial asset stripping" of Spanish
phone company’s former affiliate via a series of companies located in
Mexico, Puerto Rico and the United States.

Likewise, "they carried out actions for the progressive
decapitalization" of Sintel via the issuance of a series of guarantees
and loans, which, one way or another, benefited Mastec or associated
companies.

By December 1998, in a debt recognition contract between the phone
company and Mastec, Sintel itself was used as collateral to pay for its
purchase. Most Sintel actions were transferred to five companies, four
of them based in the Virgin Islands, whose administrators are among the
defendants.

As part of these mafioso business dealings, Sintel affiliates in four
South American countries also were transferred to these phantom
companies at the same time as Sintel was being decapitalized with the
sale of another 10 enterprises from the conglomerate.

EVEN THE RETIREMENT FUND WAS STOLEN

A poignant article published in 2001 in the Spanish magazine Interviú
gave perhaps the best description of the human tragedy caused by
Sintel’s bankruptcy and the common element to both events: disdain for
human lives on the part of Jorge Mas Canosa and those who backed him.

The magazine said that "14 workers died, seven by suicide, seven from
heart attacks; another is recuperating after being in a coma for two
months, and 70 other workers are in psychiatric treatment," as direct
consequences, as of that moment, of Sintel’s fraudulent sale. This did
not even count the "80% of wives and children of workers who are
suffering from depression and stress."

According to one of the swindled workers, Adolfo Jiménez, in their
eagerness to grab more money, the Miami business owners had stolen the
money from 10 payrolls, plus the life insurance payments and pension
plans of the workers.