Pandora Papers point to former Peruvian president Kuczynski for carrying out operations with shell companies

The former president of Peru, Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, has appeared in the Pandora Papers where it is stated that he acquired an ‘offshore’ company when he was the Minister of Economy in 2004.

The Dorado Asset Management company was acquired in 2004 by the attorney-in-fact for Kuczynski’s business businesses and his partner, and the purchase form indicates that the one who was minister at that time would be the sole owner of the company, according to the Peruvian newspaper ‘La República’ collecting Convoca publications in collaboration with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), authors of the Pandora Papers.

After leaving the Economy and Finance portfolio, Kuczynski served as the country’s prime minister until July 2006, and later, in 2016, he was president of the South American nation. However, as a senior official in Peru, he was prohibited from private business activity based on the country’s laws.

The special team of the operation ‘Lava Jato’ of the Prosecutor’s Office also has suspicions that Kuczynski’s profits from the Odebrecht corruption case ended up in Dorado Asset Management. This is why the prosecutors in charge of the case have included this company in the case.

Prosecutors have also seized two properties of the firm, one of them is Kuczynski’s residence and the place where he is serving house arrest as a conviction for this crime.

Before the Congress of Peru, the former president defended in 2017 that Dorado had been created for “the management and administration of some properties”, although, according to some documents, it was also used in financial consulting work.

For his part, Kuczynski himself has not been able to give his version of the events or defend himself from the accusations, since the process opened against him by the Prosecutor’s Office prevents it.

PANDORA ROLES

The Pandora Papers consist of a series of documents that would show how 35 prominent leaders and former world leaders such as Russian President Vladimir Putin; King Abdullah of Jordan; the Czech Prime Minister, Andrej Babis; or the president of Ecuador, Guillermo Lasso, have assets in tax havens.

The leaked documents could prompt cases for crimes of corruption, money laundering or tax evasion, although for the most part they are evidence of fully legal operations that the rich and powerful use to create companies to buy property

The Pandora Papers follow in the wake of leaks of documents such as the FinCen Archives, the Paradise Papers, the Panama Papers and LuxLeaks, but the ICIJ assures that the latter is the largest leak, with 14 sources, almost 12 million files and almost 3 terabytes of data.