The former vice president of the Government, former president of Bankia and former director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Rodrigo Rato, has waited nine years to defend himself against the accusation of having hidden money abroad with the intention of hiding it from the Spanish Treasury.
This is what his lawyer has warned the president of the court of the Provincial Court of Madrid that is prosecuting him when asking for time and patience in the long interrogation to which she is subjecting her client. Rato wants to explain himself to the “madness” of the accusation by the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office and the State Attorney’s Office, which are asking for more than 70 years in prison for him for eleven tax crimes, money laundering and corruption between individuals.
The origin of the investigation, initiated in 2015 by an alert in the National Office against Tax Fraud (ONIF), was the knowledge that Rato had taken advantage of the tax amnesty approved by the Government of Mariano Rajoy, specifically with the impetus of the then Minister of Finance Cristóbal Montoro.
For Rato, the explanation for his money abroad is none other than a family inheritance, specifically from his father, who left money in Switzerland and after his death wanted to return it to Spain. Other income came from the sale of his house, two loans and money paid by an English company, Vivaway. “It was all clean money, it has always been clean money,” he stated when asked by his lawyer during his interrogation as the accused in the 41st session of the oral hearing. This is the third trial that Rato has faced, after the conviction for the so-called ‘black cards’ of Caja Madrid, which led him to serve four and a half years in prison, and for the listing of Bankia, for which he was acquitted.
“It is known that my father paid a considerable fine in 1968 for having money abroad, but that fine never forced him to repatriate the money he had in Switzerland, which he never repatriated,” the economist has argued.
His explanation is that upon the death of his father, he takes over the family business Westcastle. And the Geneva bankers, who had known her father, continued with her, from whom she did not have the funds, until she decided to take advantage of the tax amnesty.
Rato has strongly criticized this tool approved by Montoro, which caused great doubts among potential beneficiaries, to such an extent that the general directorate of taxes had to issue two clarifying statements about its scope. “It was the second most important regularization in Europe and it was very controversial in Spain,” he added.
José María Aznar’s number two has described the investigation into him as a “fabulation” initiated by the Treasury in 2015 for some alleged crimes, “which have mutated until creating the current accusation.”
For this reason, Rato has refused to answer the questions of both the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office and the State Attorney’s Office, whom he also accuses of having used unredacted personal emails to support the accusation of 70 years in prison for defrauding 8.5 million euros, for some private businesses from 1999. He is accused of carrying out corporate maneuvers abroad and trying to return the money to Spain without the knowledge or control of the Spanish Treasury.
During his statement, he pointed out to the investigators for hiding that he did have authorization from Bankia to charge through private companies for activities such as conferences or for saying that he did not reside in Washington in 2006 when he headed the IMF. “It is incredible that Spanish public officials can say that during my time as director of the IMF I was a resident of Spain. I don’t know where these people come from, they are very strong. They say I was only in Washington for 10 days. They take us for fools. Or is it a falsehood or nonsense,” he pointed out.
