Brazilian Prosecutor’s Office will ask for explanations from authorities peppered by Pandora Papers

The Prosecutor’s Office of Brazil will ask for explanations from the Minister of Economy, Paulo Guedes, and the president of the Central Bank, Roberto Campos Neto, after appearing in the Pandora papers, a journalistic investigation into the alleged hiding of money in tax havens by world leaders.

The Brazilian attorney general, Augusto Aras, opened on Monday a “preliminary scrutiny” on the ‘offshore’ companies linked to both authorities, which have already stated that they are legal and are duly declared to the treasury.

According to research by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), Guedes owns the British Virgin Islands-based firm Dreadnoughts International.

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That company received deposits of 9.5 million dollars until September, when it was still active, according to the ICIJ.

On the other hand, Campos Neto opened the Cor Assets company in Panama, which was in operation from 2004 until August 2020, when it was closed, more than a year after assuming the presidency of the Central Bank.

Campos Neto’s name also appears in a company opened in the British Virgin Islands and that was active between January 2007 and November 2016.

The procedure instituted today by the Brazilian Attorney General’s Office is a kind of “pre-investigation” that can lead to the formal opening of an investigation or a filing of the matter, if it does not find sufficient evidence.

In this phase, the first step will be to collect information in this regard, which includes requesting clarification from the two parties, whose business abroad could constitute a possible conflict of interest.

Suspicions about Guedes and Campos Neto have led various parliamentarians from the opposition to the Government of President Jair Bolsonaro to directly request the Supreme Court to initiate investigations.

“It is possible that the president of the Central Bank and the Minister of Economy, by keeping their offshore in tax havens abroad, have taken advantage of their status as managers of public economic policies in Brazil for eventual enrichment,” said the senator. Randolfe Rodrigues, from the Rede party.

The ICIJ investigation, called the “Pandora Papers,” involved 600 journalists who have examined 1.9 million documents.

The scandal has affected three active Latin American presidents: Sebastián Piñera, from Chile; Guillermo Lasso, from Ecuador; and Luis Abinader, from the Dominican Republic, among many other authorities in the region.