- Research: Anti-corruption uncovers a new fortune of the Pujol family in Andorra
- 'Case of Pujol'.The Pujol operated in Andorra under the alias of' Sagrada Familia '
The Pujol family allocated the supposed new hidden fortune in Andorra recently denounced by Anticorruption to finance coffee crops in Mexico and their subsequent export to the United States .
As EL MUNDO has been able to prove, the family of the former Catalan president used the bank accounts of the Principality that the Prosecutor's Office maintains have been used to channel «funds other than those already known» to inject money into the Mexican coffee group Sanroke , controlled by the Muguira family and considered the most important in the country.
The operation that is now being investigated by the Public Ministry dates back to 2002 and was interrupted in 2013, when the judge of the National Court Pablo Ruz began investigating the Pujol family for money laundering from political corruption.
The family's money left the Andorran accounts of its members and people in its direct environment, such as those of businessman Francesc Robert Ribes , former director of Andorran television, and returned periodically in the form of dividends back to the Principality.
The businessman José Herrero de Egaña , specialized in foreign trade, introduced Jordi Pujol Ferrusola, the first-born son of the former president , to the coffee business in Latin America almost two decades ago. Herrero de Egaña, who had already participated in the purchase of coffee in Nicaragua , introduced Pujol to Domingo Muguira , one of the main fortunes of the continent, considered in his country as the King of coffee .
The contact with Muguira fructified and resulted in an agreement whereby they would inject funds into their business group to cover coffee crops located in the Mexican states of Chiapas and Veracruz .
Funds from Andorra were injected into the Sanroke Group of the Latin American country
The money invested would be channeled through a Mexican company called Deschis Usa Corporation , with an account in Miami , which also instructed the export of coffee - soluble, roasted and ground - to the United States.
In this way, the Sanroke Group became a direct competition in the neighboring country of Nescafé , in the segment of soluble coffee, and of the Mexican group Café Legal , in the section of roasted and ground coffee. The penetration of the product, reinforced thanks to the financing of the Pujol, was carried out through large commercial areas such as those of the Walmart company.
Initially, Jordi Pujol Ferrusola involved in the coffee business several people around him, on whom the Prosecutor's Office extends the suspicion that they were acting as family heads to launder their funds.
The first person in these operations is the Andorran businessman Antoni Zorzano , with whom Pujol Jr. came into contact through the world of rugby, and who made a first investment in Deschis that ended up being sold shortly after, in 2002, to another person next to Pujol Jr .: Robert Ribes . He paid 1.6 million dollars to acquire the position of Zorzano, who says he left the operation because he never understood it.
Anti-corruption believes that they used several frontmen to hide the operation
Zorzano was subsequently followed by Pujol Ferrusola himself with an investment of around 1.9 million dollars. Jordi Puig, brother of former CDC Minister Felip Puig and partner of the eldest son of the former president of the Generalitat, also became involved in this operation.
The mechanics were that the injection of funds from the Pujol group, which made loans to the subsidiary of the Sanroke Group, was followed by quarterly dividend payments to the lenders. On some very large occasions, around 200,000 euros.
Robert Ribes, on whom Anticorruption now points out as the manager of important hidden funds of the Pujol in Andorra, explained at the end of 2017 before Judge José de la Mata that he invested successfully in the still unknown Deschis, presenting the operation as one of the businesses that "like" it because of its high profitability.
But he has already flatly denied that his participation in this and other operations with Pujol would imply that he worked as a frontman. "My accounts and my money is mine and Jordi Pujol is his, he does not forgive even a coffee," he said, separating himself from the firstborn, from whom he admitted to being a close friend and having shared hobbies with him such as climbing.
Parallel to the actions of the Prosecutor's Office, the Treasury attributes to Robert Ribes the diversion to Panama of nine million of the Pujol family, which remains silent after the last judicial proceedings. This newspaper has tried to contact him without success in recent weeks.
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