The Swiss authorities inform the National Court that the Pujol family hid in Switzerland an investment fund with 17 million of which transferred at least 8 to Luxembourg

Los Pujol. Seven years of provisional freedom plagued by incumbents and unjustified money

'Case of Pujol'. Anticorruption uncovers a new fortune of the Pujol family in Andorra

The Swiss authorities inform the National Court that the Pujol family hid in Switzerland an investment fund with 17 million of which they transferred at least 8 to Luxembourg. THE WORLD has had exclusive access to the content of the rogatory commission issued by Judge José de la Mata to the Swiss country, which links the Catalan clan with a deposit that reached 17,935,861.97 euros. This is the theoretical value achieved by family investments in a 'hedge fund' called Selecta and which also includes the well-known Catalan businessman Carlos Tusquets Trias de Bes.

The instructor of the 'Pujol case', which already has the new documentation, reiterates that "the Pujol Ferrusola family has taken advantage of their privileged position of ancestry in Catalan political, social and economic life to accumulate over the years an excessive heritage by its members, directly related to economic perceptions as a result of corrupt behavior. "

As EL MUNDO revealed a few days ago, De la Mata has just discovered what he believes is a hidden family fortune in Andorra on behalf of businessman Francesc Robert Ribes through half a dozen new bank accounts whose amount is still to quantify. However, the Treasury has already raised to 9 million euros the amount of unpublished funds that the family would have diverted using Robert Ribes' corporate network to Panama, whom Anticorrupción points to as the head of the Catalan clan.

The Pujol family argues, however, that these funds are not new and that the money moved by the aforementioned businessman does not belong to him. In fact, he considers that Justice has not emerged new money for which the Pujol have not already been asked in court. On the other hand, the Prosecutor's Office maintains that it is "money other than the one known so far." To these operations is now added the largest of all, which is close to 18 million.

In the management of family funds, Judge De la Mata points to the eldest son Jordi Pujol Ferrusola, from whom he considers "repeatedly accredited the use of the Swiss jurisdiction and others for various operations aimed at the concealment and laundering of illicitly obtained capital, in turn. hidden in Andorra and other jurisdictions. "

As for the operations of Switzerland, which always start from the money that the Pujol family attributes to family inheritance, the National Court highlights, as the "most important with quite a difference", a transfer made by Jordi Pujol Jr. on September 27 in 2002 for 4,409,212.43 euros in the direction of a JP Morgan account in the Swiss country. The money, which came from family accounts in the Principality, some of them in the name of his brother Oleguer and his ex-wife Mercé Gironés, ended up in a deposit in the name of Selecta Fund Ltd.

Jordi Pujol Jr. was already interrogated for this specific operation before the judge on at least two occasions: in February 2016 and April 2017 and explained that it was a financial investment. The eldest son of the former Catalan president added that this money was only his, since the famous inheritance had already been distributed among his brothers. He also stressed that he ended up losing much of that money because the investments made were failed. The rogatory commission now documents in detail the operation already described by Pujol Jr.

The Swiss deposit now analyzed by the National Court reached a net balance of 17.9 million. The judge attributes Pujol Jr. as "beneficiary" of the same although there were other investors. Of those funds, in December 2004, the family transferred 8,002,162.47 euros to the Luxembourg Pictet & Cie entity.

The 'hedge fund' in which the Pujol invested part of their Andorran fortune, which constituted a banking product that reported great benefits but also entailed significant risks, was established in July 2001 with headquarters in the British Virgin Islands.

The Judicial Police and Judge De la Mata consider, after analyzing the documentation submitted by Switzerland, that "there is no doubt about the total dominance of the banking operation by Pujol Ferrusola in collaboration with Tusquets Trias de Bes, ultimately positioning itself as beneficiaries of the assets injected into the accounts under analysis ".

The investigation of the 'Pujol case' ends next September and Anticorrupción prepares its letter of accusation against the family for money laundering from corruption incorporating these new operations while facing the weakest flank of the investigations: the connection of this money with the public contracts of the Generalitat of which it maintains that the commissions charged by the clan came.

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