A SHELL company linked to a bribery scandal in Brazil paid US$1 million to another firm wholly-owned by a Trinidadian politician as part of an international bid to win a N$3,5 billion (US$340 million) tender to expand the Walvis Bay Port in Namibia, according to leaked documents.
Santa Tereza Services, a firm incorporated in New Zealand but owned by another front company in London, outsourced a N$10 million (US$1 million) contract to Pendrey Associates Corporation in 2012.
This information comes from leaked internal data obtained by the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung, through an anonymous source, from the Panama-based law firm Mossack Fonseca.
The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists shared the files with The Namibian, and organised the global collaboration covering the leak.
The more than 11 million documents, dating from 1977 to December 2015, show the inner workings of how Mossack Fonseca helps customers create offshore shelters.
The leak provides facts and figures – cash transfers, incorporation dates, links between companies and individuals – which illuminate a dark alternate universe where some people go to play by different rules, and of a firm which enables such behaviour.
They reveal the offshore holdings of individuals and companies from more than 200 countries and territories. They recount example after example of ethical and legal wrongdoing by clients, and provide evidence of a firm happy to act as a gatekeeper to the secrets of its clients, even those who turn out to be crooks, members of the mafia, drug dealers, corrupt politicians and tax evaders.
On 26 December 2012, Santa Tereza Services, which has a bank account at PBK Bank in Switzerland, tasked Pendrey Associates, an offshore firm based in Panama, with determining the price of the Namibian port contract and producing a technical report on key aspects such as the workforce and bidding processes on behalf of an unnamed international company.
According to leaked court documents from Brazil ‘s ‘Car Wash ‘ scandal, Santa Tereza Services paid US$1 million to “Pendrey to develop the technical studies that will support the pricing and technical proposal for the expansion of the Walvis Bay Port.”
Santa Tereza Services has a dirty past.
By early 2015, Santa Tereza Services emerged as a significant player in the Brazilian bribery scandal code named ‘Lava Jato ‘, or Car Wash. Brazilian media reports said Santa Tereza is owned by John Procopio de Almeida Prado, a subordinate of Albero Youssef, a convicted money launderer and a principal player at the centre of Brazil ‘s biggest-ever political corruption scandal.
Testimony in the overall inquiry showed that executives at Petrobras accepted large bribes from companies, and channeled some of that money to political figures and the ruling Workers Party.
Pendrey Associates Corporation was registered on 11 December 2012 in Panama, with Ken Emrith, a politician in Trinidad and Tobago as the sole signatory. Pendrey Associates was registered by offshore fixing firm Mossack Fonseca.
Emrith is a former politician with the United National Congress (UNC), which ruled Trinidad and Tobago between 1995 and 2001.
Even though he did not hold any position after that, he remained an active member in the party.
Emrith was also the chief executive of the Centre of Excellence, which is linked to disgraced Caribbean football supremo and former FIFA vice-president, Jack Warner.
Emrith parted company with the centre in 2010.
There is no other proof of Emrith ‘s connections to Namibians, but the latest leak shows how another businessman implicated in the same bribery scandal in Brazil is linked to the company that was apparently tasked to determine the price of the Namibian port bid.
In December 2013, Jose Luiz Pires of the investment firm Queluz in Sao Paulo (also implicated in operation Lava Jet) requested for incorporation information about Emrith ‘s Pendrey Associates.
Pires asked about Pendrey, copies of passports and addresses of five dummy directors and registration details. Emrith asked his lawyer to answer the questions by Pires.
Pires, who was operating from Sao Paulo, was questioned by the Brazilian police in connection with the money-laundering scheme connected to Brazilian oil state company Petrobras.
The Walvis Bay Corridor Group, a NamPort subsidiary, created an office in Sao Paulo ‘to promote business development efforts ‘ in 2012, the same year Emrith was given the tender to work on the technical report for the Namibian port bid.
At the heart of the Namibian transaction is offshore fixer Mossack Fonseca, which appears to have helped Emrith force through the transaction, despite concerns by the Caribbean-based Bank of Saint Lucia International Limited.
On 9 August 2013, the bank informed Emrith that they were going to close his company ‘s bank account.
The decision by the bank to close the bank account just when the company was receiving money into its account irked Emrith, who later that same day asked for assistance from a fellow businessman.
“Brother, we need to talk,” Emrith said in an email sent to Rafael Jaramillo, an Ecuadorian businessman Emrith used to meet for Mossack Fonseca ‘s due diligence requirement for setting up an offshore company.
In fact, Emrith himself admitted in an email conversation with Jaramillo that an investigation is now underway by Citi Bank as Boslil has coded the reason for rejecting his bank account as “UTA” (unable to apply).
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