A few economic brushstrokes on the Pujols
The decision taken by the National Court against the Pujol family deserves certain annotations that better illustrate and substantiate the very serious crimes attributed to them.
In 1993, when he had been defrauding the tax authorities for 13 years, during a visit to Santa Coloma de Gramenet, some protesters claimed their rights in the face of fiscal pressure, which led him to address them, saying that they should value “the civic virtues of taxes”. Surprising and outrageous.
In 1993, the then president reminded protesters of “the civic virtues of taxes”
In 2015, during the celebration of the Parliamentary Committee on Corruption and Tax Fraud, a “shameless description of this enrichment (that of his children) was found through numerous indications, such as exorbitant prices, unprecedented competition for public contracts for companies in the family and social environment, unjustified invoicing, alleged influence peddling…”. Behaviors that led to various conclusions, such as “corruption slows down social and economic development and increases poverty due to the diversion of investments that had to be allocated to these goals”.
The recognition of his criminal conduct for 34 years in July 2014 revealed that a fraud so continued and of such enormous proportions, committed by a person of such high public and political relevance, especially from 1990, when the state signs the treaty called FATF, against tax fraud; it was only possible by the permissiveness, even complicity, of the tax authorities of Spain. All this raises, despite the time that has elapsed, very serious and worrying questions.
Jordi Pujol Ferrussola’s prison sentence describes his way of acting as a “criminal organization”
In 2000, Jordi Pujol Ferrusola (JPF) opened a bank account with Banca Reig in Andorra. When the court of inquiry claims information on this account, for an amount of 307,000,000 pesetas, it turns out that the holder was Jordi Pujol father, according to a manuscript signed by him. The court then states: “The origin of these funds is unknown”. Throughout the interlocutory decree that describes this operation, the judge states “the fortune accumulated over the years by members of the family of Pujol Ferrusola…”.
On July 7, 2014, Marta Ferrusola and her children Marta, Pere and Mireia paid or, rather, “regularized” the tax debts they had generated, all above the typical threshold of 120,000 euros established by article 305 of the Penal Code”. That is, they had committed the corresponding tax offenses. For a total of 3,144,381 euros, the resolution that includes this operation does not contain any reference to the origin of these funds. The highest tax debt corresponded to Mireia Pujol, more than one million euros.
The whole economic plot of the Pujol family, which is becoming known, gives rise to an editorial in EL PAÍS, on January 2, 2016, “Family or Mafia”, with the subtitle: “None of the financial actions of the Pujols have legal support”. And it added that the facts discovered are “politically devastating”
In the order of unconditional imprisonment of JPF, of April 25, 2017, reference is made, in addition to other multiple financial actions, to the fact that certain companies he managed had as “the only use to channel capital of presumed criminal origin for making investments and expenses in Spain and abroad”, citing Mexico as one of the destinations and considering that “the minimum amount of capital that Jordi Pujol Ferrusola would keep outside Spain is about 30 million euros”. He remains in prison until June 30 of that year, when the court agrees to his release on bail of three million euros, which he obviously paid. This resolution already describes an important part of the “criminal organization” that has now based the decision to push the trial to the oral phase.
Suffice it to review one of the most significant paragraphs: they allowed him to have bank accounts in other jurisdictions (Mexico, Andorra, the United States, Paraguay, Argentina, Panama).
What has been described is a moderate approach to the “criminal organization” with which the family is criminally defined.
https://cat.elpais.com/cat/2021/04/29/opinion/1619691258_100486.html
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