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A Brooklyn court docket plans to arraign the son of a former Panamanian president on money-laundering prices on Saturday, the results of an extradition case that in line with prosecutors featured a stealth getaway to the Bahamas, faux diplomatic credentials and a personal jet idling on a tarmac in Guatemala.
The defendant, Ricardo Alberto Martinelli Linares, was captured in Guatemala final 12 months together with his brother and indicted in February. He was extradited to the US on Friday and can face prices in U.S. District Court docket in Brooklyn, prosecutors say.
The instances towards Mr. Martinelli Linares and his brother are linked to the U.S. authorities’s bigger investigation into Odebrecht, a Brazilian building conglomerate that prosecutors say paid almost $800 million in bribes to officers and political events in a number of international locations. In 2016, Odebrecht and its affiliated petrochemical agency, Braskem, pleaded responsible to federal bribery prices within the Japanese District court docket and agreed to pay at the least $3.5 billion in penalties.
The opposite Martinelli brother, Luis Enrique Martinelli Linares, 39, was extradited to the US final month and pleaded responsible on the Japanese District court docket final week to laundering $28 million as a part of the Odebrecht scheme. He may serve as much as 20 years in jail.
The brothers’ father, Ricardo Alberto Martinelli Berrocal, 69, ruled Panama from 2009 till 2014 and has mentioned he might run for president there once more in 2024. 4 years after leaving workplace, he was extradited from the US to Panama to face prices associated to an unlawful wiretapping scheme that prosecutors mentioned he had carried out whereas in workplace. A Panamanian court docket absolved him of these prices final month.
Federal prosecutors mentioned in a letter to an Japanese District decide late Friday that Ricardo Alberto Martinelli Linares had been indicted on prices of conspiracy to launder tens of hundreds of thousands of {dollars} in bribes “on behalf of an in depth relative who was a high-ranking authorities official in Panama” from 2009 till 2014. Prosecutors have used comparable language in his brother’s case.
The letter on Friday didn’t point out the previous president by title.
American prosecutors have accused the Martinelli brothers, who’re residents of each Panama and Italy, of hiding proceeds from the Odebrecht scheme partly by way of monetary transactions made by way of U.S. banks, a few of them in New York. The Panamanian authorities has additionally sought them over involvement within the scheme.
For years after Odebrecht’s responsible plea in 2016, U.S. prosecutors say, the Martinelli brothers met with American officers to debate the case, and ultimately the logistics of potential plea offers.
However in June 2020, the brothers left for the Bahamas, touring by an “unknown vessel” and evading United States border controls, prosecutors mentioned of their letter on Friday.
Within the Bahamas, the brothers, together with Mr. Luis Martinelli Linares’s spouse and youngsters, boarded a personal aircraft and flew to Panama, prosecutors mentioned. However the plane was turned away due to pandemic-related journey restrictions, so that they flew on to Costa Rica after which El Salvador — simply because the federal Japanese District court docket was issuing warrants for his or her arrest.
The brothers then traveled by Uber from El Salvador’s capital, San Salvador, to the Guatemala border, prosecutors mentioned. On the time, Guatemala was not permitting guests, however the brothers have been capable of slip in by falsely representing themselves as officers of the Central American Parliament.
The brothers later obtained emergency humanitarian authorization from Panama’s well being minister to enter the nation, prosecutors mentioned. However on or round July 6, they have been arrested at an airport in Guatemala Metropolis as they tried to board the household’s non-public jet and fly to Panama.
Representatives for the Martinelli brothers couldn’t be reached for remark late Friday.
Luis Enrique Martinelli Linares, who was extradited to the US final month and pleaded responsible on cash laundering prices final week, is in detention whereas he awaits sentencing in Could 2022, prosecutors say.
Of their letter on Friday to Choose Robert M. Levy, a workforce of prosecutors led by Breon S. Peace, the U.S. lawyer for Japanese District of New York, described Ricardo Alberto Martinelli Linares as “a considerable and confirmed flight danger.”
“Given Ricardo Martinelli Linares’s actions over the previous a number of years, it’s clear that he’ll do something to keep away from prosecution in the US and return to Panama, even regardless of the separate prison prices pending towards him in that nation,” the prosecutors mentioned.
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