Tom PowellPOLICE have revealed the three children of ex-Catalan president Jordi Pujol hid a €581 million fortune in various overseas accounts over the past five years.
Jordi, Josep and Oleguer Pujol, Barcelona’s leading business and politics family, have apparently been using a range of global tax havens since 2009.
They stored huge sums particularly in Switzerland, Andorra and Luxembourg, according to information from financial institutions.
The fortune was allegedly amassed by their father during 34 years spent in office receiving reported illegal payments for the awarding of services and contracts.
However, Pujol denied all allegations of corruption before the Catalan parliament this week.
He claimed the fortune came from his late father Florenci Pujol, who deposited 140 million pesetas in international accounts in foreign currency, which increased in value over the years.
“Having money abroad can be criticised, highly criticised, but it does not mean that its origin is illegal,” said Pujol, 84.
“I have never received anything, I repeat, never, beyond my salary as premier.”
Wow.
PLEASE NAME Pujol’s investment “advisor” so we… and the Bank of Spain, can also benefit from such capital “achievements” !! All our debts will be gone manana!
And people wonder why Spain is in a mess. The EU will need to up the yearly increase to pay for all of these hand outs and corrupt payments. I doubt if the Spanish would ever want to leave the EU all the time they have enough spare cash to hide away billions…
Meanwhile, all the expat mugs have to fill in their Modelo 720’s on time, or risk massive fines. Spain in a nutshell.
This makes my blood boil. I am currently “liado” with Hacienda, as I have to “justificar” just about everything including the colour of my hair (what’s left of it) to get a reduction in my tax bill. Obviously, this has to be done in “Castellano”, because the law demands it, and all translations have to be “traducciónes jurados”. The long and short of it is the cost of the translations comes to approximately 75% of the possible tax reduction. Hacienda agree this is disproportionate, “pero, hay que cumplir con la ley”… And they wonder why all the expats are upping and leaving… I’m packing my bags already…
Iestyn ap Robert, you and countless others (as you rightly point out) are leaving. Meanwhile, Portugal are cleaning up and offering themselves up as an expat friendly destination. This is exactly what Spain should be doing but instead they choose to alienate people and drive them away.
They’re not bothered Jane. They will be able to do it all over again with East Europeans and Russians.
I fear you are right Stefanjo but the Russians and Eastern Europeans are no pushover – they don’t do Uriah Heap and quite rightly so.
Good point Jane, and they settle their scores in a different way too…
Sounds intriguing and a bit sinister…So E.E.s and Russkis are capable of thwarting the Spanish system where Brits etc. don’t have the bottle? Hmm…