Portuguese authorities investigating alleged corruption and money laundering over a two billion euro submarines deal have uncovered an alleged commission invoice for 30 million euros.
The invoice was found at Espírito Santo Group company ESCOM, which the Public Ministry suspects may have been used as a bogus consultancy firm to pay millions of euros in bribes to crooked Portuguese officials.
The company, allegedly using ESCOM as a phantom consultancy, was the German industrial giant Man Ferrostaal AG which is at the centre of an international fraud and bribery scandal involving selling armaments to Portugal, Columbia, Greece and Argentina.
ESCOM has strongly denied any impropriety, with a spokesperson stating over the weekend to Portuguese daily newspaper Correio da Manhã that the company was “not involved in any way in supplying submarines to the Portuguese State, so it is not possible that any invoice related to this supply could have been found, let alone commissions”.
Judicial and police authorities in Germany and Portugal are investigating the activities of Man Ferrostaal, several Portuguese businessmen, an Algarve businessman and suspended Consul, a retired Rear Admiral and the right wing CDS Party over allegations that the Portuguese State may have been defrauded by millions of euros in the deal that stretches back to 2004.
Last week a Bavarian morning newspaper reported that Matthias Mitscherlich, President of Ferrostaal AG, had been indicted by the Munich Attorney’s office for mismanagement and abusing his position of trust in the company.
Arrestsa
Another director, Klaus Lesker, who was in Lisbon earlier this year to renegotiate the offsets deals associated with the sale of the submarines in 2004, has been arrested for the second time. Two other German directors from the Essen-based company are also being investigated for fraud by the Portuguese authorities.
It was reported in German newspaper Der Spiegel, in March, that a senior Ferrostaal manager had told police investigators in Germany that it was par for the course to pay bribes as commissions in certain countries in order to win lucrative submarine contracts.
Both the Government PS party and several opposition parties are considering an official parliamentary inquiry into military purchases and their attendant offsets which are supposed to benefit the purchasing country through technological knowhow and business spinoffs. However several important figures, including the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Luís Amado, have said they are little more than a “scam”.
