Panama - Fausta's Blog

August 17, 2017 By Fausta

Pence cuts LatAm trip short due to NoKo

Rather than returning on Friday, Vice President Mile Pence is cutting short his trip to Latin America so he can join the president at a meeting about North Korea, but he’s still going to Panama.

The White House announced Wednesday that Pence would travel to Camp Davidwith the president on Friday to meet with the White House national security team to discuss South Asia strategy.

VP Pence is currently in Chile, where he urged Brazil, Peru, Chile, and Mexico to isolate North Korea during his news conference with Chile’s President Michelle Bachelet.

Trade between Latin American countries and North Korea is not significant.

June 27, 2017 By Fausta

Good news for the US natural gas industry

In the midst of bad news from all over the hemisphere (the usual crime–corruption–drugs-and-deaths), one good news story:

US Nat-Gas Surge Proves a Boon to Expanded Panama Canal

The burgeoning US natural-gas industry is largely responsible for the high volume of shipments of liquefied natural gas (LNG) through the expanded Panama Canal, the waterway’s manager said Monday.

Nine percent of the more than 1,500 vessels – nearly six per day – that have transited the canal in the one year since the expansion was completed were carrying LNG, administrator Jorge Quijano said.

That number far exceeds the forecast made a decade ago at the start of the project to expand the inter-oceanic channel, when the United States “was not an exporter, but rather an importer of gas,” he said.

Prior to the expansion, the canal could not accommodate the tankers used to transport LNG.

Even with a decline in global trade, the Canal’s revenues have increased by 12% since last October.

June 20, 2017 By Fausta

Ecuador: Odebrecht stoolie turns in tapes of meetings with officials

José Santos, Odebrecht’s top officer in Ecuador, has turned in to investigators videos of his meetings with government officials, according to Veja.

In exchange, he received the shortest sentence of all seventy-seven of the company’s informants.

Seventy-seven singing: Big enough for a symphonic chorus.

Santos’s tapes must be music to the ears of the investigators of the bribes-for-government contracts case(s) against Odebrecht.

Karina Martín reports,

So far, investigations into the Odebrecht case in Ecuador have led to the imprisonment of eight people, among them an uncle of re-elected Vice President Jorge Glas and the former Minister of Electricity Alecksey Mosquera.

General Comptroller Carlos Polit, who is currently outside the country, has been involved, but due to his position, he reportedly enjoys judicial privilege.

Ecuador’s lead prosecutor Carlos Baca alleges that “60 percent of the corruption plot arrived and went through Panamanian ports.”

Cross-posted at WoW! Magazine.

June 13, 2017 By Fausta

Panama: Martinelli arrested in Miami

Former Panamanian President Ricardo Martinelli Detained in U.S. The billionaire supermarket mogul is wanted in Panama as part of investigations of corruption and illegal wiretapping of political opponents

The former president is wanted in Panama as part of multiple investigations of corruption and illegal wiretapping of political opponents while in office. The Panamanian Supreme Court issued a warrant for Mr. Martinelli’s arrest in December 2015 after he failed to appear in court.

Martinelli was president from 2009 to 2014. He has been living in the U.S. since 2015.

June 2, 2017 By Fausta

Panama: How Panama’s Criminal Landscape Has Changed Since the Days of Narco-Dictator Noriega

Geographic location, secretive banking sector, and a contraband trade hub ensure Panama’s place in the drug trade.

InSight Crime reports on How Panama’s Criminal Landscape Has Changed Since the Days of Narco-Dictator Noriega

Deceased Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega was said to have turned his country into one of the most emblematic examples of a “narco-state” in Latin American history, and his dealings with Colombia‘s biggest drug bosses laid the groundwork for Panama‘s role in the global drug trade for decades after his 1989 arrest by US troops. We explore why Panama remains a drug trafficking haven for the successors of the Colombian criminals that Noriega helped make rich.

Notorious former Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega died in a Panama City hospital on May 29 due to health complications. The 83-year-old former strongman had been under house arrest in his native country after serving time in both the United States and France on drug-related charges.

Read the whole thing.

Jon Lee Anderson writes on Manuel Noriega, a Thug of a Different Era

January 6, 2017 By Fausta

Panama: La Estrella fades

Panama’s longest-running daily, La Estrella (The Star), announced it will run for another six months (link in Spanish), after announcing that its license was suspended due to allegations that its owner, Abdul Waked Fares, was involved in drug trafficking,

An investigation in Panama into allegations that Waked was involved in money-laundering activities and drug trafficking closed in November. No charges have yet been brought against him and he remains free

La Estrella had run a campaign petitioning its readers to save it, and today they announced the extension.

December 26, 2016 By Fausta

Panama: First of neo-Panamax class vessels crosses Canal

A really, really big ship that can carry 10,589 standard containers:
Largest Ship to Transit Panama Canal Arrives in Colombia

Valparaiso Express, the largest capacity vessel to transit the Panama Canal since the inauguration of new neo-Panamax locks in June, has arrived in Colombia’s Caribbean port of Cartagena.

The ship, owned by German-Chilean cargo container shipping line Hapag-Lloyd and christened on Dec. 8 in Valparaiso, set sail from that Chilean port on an inaugural commercial journey that has taken it to Callao, Peru, through the Panama Canal and to Cartagena on Thursday.

“This new vessel is state-of-the-art, which translates into navigational speed between ports, better freight rates, and much more connectivity with the countries with which Colombia has free-trade agreements,” said Alfonso Salas, manager of the Cartagena Port Authority.

The first of five neo-Panamax class vessels that will renew Hapag Lloyd’s fleet, Valparaiso Express also became the largest container ship to pull into Cartagena.

The route starts in Asia, crosses the Canal using Cartagena, Colombia as a hub, and sails to Europe.

Panama Papers: Stiglitz and Pieth issue their own report

Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz and Swiss anti-corruption expert Mark Pieth, who last August quit the Panamanian government committee investigating the Panama Papers, have issued their own report,

The 25-page report, “Overcoming the Shadow Economy,” argues that, as “economic leaders,” the U.S. and the European Union “have an obligation to force financial centers to comply with global transparency standards.”

. . .

Stiglitz and Pieth resigned from the Panamanian government committee in August, saying that government officials had refused to assure the panel it had full independence to investigate and make its findings public. The government blamed their resignations over “internal differences” on the committee.

They recommend,

Every country should establish a searchable public registry that identifies the directors and actual owners of all companies, trusts and foundations incorporated within its borders.
Governments should hand out stiff punishments to lawyers and other middlemen who knowingly register a corporation or trust “whose primary purpose is to evade or avoid taxes or to engage in money laundering.”
Governments should discourage money laundering through real estate by requiring the disclosure of the real owners for all large real estate cash transactions.

You can read their full report here.