Antonio Mexia, a former authorities official in Portugal and as soon as CEO of the nation’s largest vitality firm, saved $5.9 million in belongings in a beforehand unknown offshore firm, in line with new reporting by Expresso, an ICIJ associate. The revelations come as Mexia faces felony instances on suspicion of corruption and different monetary crimes associated to his function as CEO of Energias de Portugal.
Among the many hundreds of thousands of paperwork printed as a part of the 2021 Pandora Papers investigation, a checking account assertion dated in 2017 revealed the existence of an offshore firm, Miamex Ventures Ltd., registered within the British Virgin Islands. On the time, the beneficiary of the funds invested within the firm was unknown. However just lately, ICIJ and Expresso obtained a leaked consumer portfolio presentation made in 2019 by Boreal Capital Administration, a wealth administration and fiduciary companies firm in Zurich, that recognized Mexia as a beneficiary of Miamex Ventures.
Account statements discovered by Expresso within the Pandora Papers reveal that in mid-2017 Miamex Ventures had $1.4 million in funding funds, $2.7 million in company bonds and $1.7 million in financial institution deposits, for a complete market worth of $5.9 million The paperwork analyzed by Expresso present that the funds had been in an account managed by a Portuguese monetary supervisor, Bernardo d’Orey, of EFG Capital. He didn’t reply to Expresso’s request for remark.
That yr, Mexia grew to become a defendant in an investigation by the Portuguese public prosecutor’s workplace, which was later divided into three felony instances, all on suspicion of corruption and different monetary crimes associated to his time as CEO of the vitality firm EDP between 2006 and 2020, in line with Expresso.
Miamax was dissolved voluntarily on Might 28, 2020, in line with an announcement printed by a British Virgin Islands newspaper, Expresso reported. 4 days later, the general public prosecutor’s workplace questioned Mexia as a part of the case towards him.
Expresso reported Friday that the prosecutor didn’t know the offshore firm existed and the data was not included of their case to this point. Two of the three felony investigations are anticipated to conclude quickly. If convicted of corruption, Mexia might face time in jail. By his lawyer, he declined to reply to Expresso’s request for remark.
Mexia “may be very well-known, essential, very highly effective within the vitality sector,” Expresso reporter and ICIJ member Micael Pereira mentioned. “He was behind lots of the choices made within the final 15 or 20 years in Portugal in connection to one of many greatest sectors within the economic system, the vitality sector.”
“As a result of at this level we don’t know the origin of the cash, the continuing authorized instances may be delayed till prosecutors get extra info on this firm,” Pereira added.
The Pandora Papers was a 2021 ICIJ investigation of a trove of greater than 11.9 million confidential recordsdata. The paperwork had been leaked from 14 offshore companies corporations around the globe that arrange shell firms and different offshore nooks for his or her purchasers, together with royals, billionaires and a whole bunch of heads of state, politicians and public officers. ICIJ led a group of greater than 600 journalists from 150 information retailers that spent two years sifting via the paperwork.
