Rato in hot water as tax investigation continues

RODRIGO RATO, a former IMF chief and veteran Popular Party (PP) official, is under scrutiny for tax fraud, as well as other crimes. In 2013, it is reported that he transferred company shares to his children, worth €2.5 million, in an attempt to avoid paying civil liability bonds in an ongoing criminal investigation.

Rato is involved in a number of probes, including the high profile case looking at the alleged abuse of company credit cards by national bank, Bankia. He is also being investigated for a tax amnesty he filed for in 2012, which prosecutors strongly believe was used for money laundering.

Following months of investigating his assets, Rato was briefly arrested and his home searched in a probe that saw revelations of companies established in tax haven locations abroad. Adding to the case being built against him, is the fact that he has travelled to tax haven mecca, Switzerland, on numerous occasions, the most recent being in April.

His suspicious activity didn’t end there – after transferring the shares in four companies, Rato re-acquired them through another firm called Kradonara 2001. Tax authorities consider Kradonara 2001, to be an opaque entity, because its only partner is a company based in Gibraltar, Vivaway Limited, which is actually owned by Rodrigo Rato. According to investigators, he has been guising under another company name, “Findsbury Holdings Limited GB to conceal the real ownership.”

The tax investigation concludes that “practically the entirety of Rodrigo Rato’s known assets to date” are currently in possession of this Gibraltar firm, and thus “outside national jurisdiction.”