The head of the Court of Instruction number 31 of Madrid, Antonio Serrano-Arnal, has agreed to maintain the seizure of assets to the former Minister of Economy Rodrigo Rato for not paying the 65.1 million bond set in the indictment in which Sends him to the bench for crimes against the Public Treasury, money laundering and corruption in business, within the framework of the case on the alleged illicit origin of his assets.
Sources consulted have confirmed that the former minister has not paid the bond imposed by the judge to “ensure the pecuniary responsibilities” that could be imposed on the former minister in sentence and that – as the magistrate advised in his car – by not providing the money in the foreseen term “assets will be seized in sufficient quantity to ensure the indicated sum.”
The same sources have recalled that the judge had already set an asset seizure for Rato in 2015 as a result of a complaint filed by the State Tax Administration Agency. At that time, the sum seized reached 18 million euros and included even the pension of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that he receives in his capacity as the former director of the institution.
Thus, the head of the court will maintain the preventive embargo until a final judgment is issued by a court, which will set the final figure -which may be higher or lower-.
Personal notification
Rato went last Friday to the courts of Plaza de Castilla, in Madrid, to personally receive the notification of the judge’s prosecution, a formality “given the nature of the sentence requested” by the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office, which claims for him 70 years in prison .
The former minister regretted on his departure from court – in statements to the press – that “none” of the three main crimes for which he was arrested in 2015 appear in the car in which he is sent to trial.
In addition, he alleged that the tax crimes for which he is now accused “all refer to professional work through companies”, which he considers a “usual practice” by which “very important people such as former presidents of the Government have never been brought in. by criminal means but by administrative means “.
8.5 million euros defrauded
The investigation led by the investigating judge concludes that Rato has maintained since 1999 a hidden patrimony to the Public Treasury through various companies with which he would have carried out continuous financial investment activities through bank accounts in the Bahamas, Switzerland, Monaco, Luxembourg and the United Kingdom. , among other places.
The investigations have identified unjustified increases in Rato’s equity between 2005 and 2015 for a total amount of 15.6 million euros, in addition to returns from movable capital abroad that were not declared to the Public Treasury either. The defrauded quotas would amount to 8.5 million in those fiscal years.
The Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office initially asks for 70 years in prison for Rato, but it will have to adjust its request at the end of the oral hearing since the former minister will not be tried for crimes of punishable insolvency and documentary falsification.
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