Judge orders opening accounts of Tomislav Topic in the USA

Ecuadornews:

The bank accounts of Tomislav Topic, his son Jan and his company Telconet will be part of a legal process in the USA. Judge George Sarduy, who follows the divorce trial of Tammy Verduga against Topic (father) in the Eleventh Circuit of Miami-Dade County, ordered last Wednesday (November 29) the release of information from the accounts. At the oral hearing, he also allowed the Merril Linch bank account executive, Maribel Maldonado, to be questioned, according to Xavier Castro, a lawyer from Verduga.

According to the investigations of the Odebrecht case, from the Glory International account, a company related to Ricardo Rivera, uncle of Vice President Jorge Glas, USD 13.5 million had been transferred to the account of Jan, also a Telconet partner.

In the voluntary versions to the Office of the Prosecutor, father and son agreed that this money corresponds to Chinese investors who were going to be part of the Submarine Cable construction project, but the business did not materialize. These resources were in turn transferred to the Telconet account in Merril Linch. Due to these banking movements and transfers from Odebrecht to Glory International, Jan, Tomislav and Rivera face criminal proceedings for allegedly laundering assets.

The opening of these accounts in the US could help in part to clarify this case, whose hearing to formulate charges is scheduled in the coming days. However, Castro clarifies that his main interest is that his client can recover the shares that Tomislav and Jan took from Telconet.

Currently 83% of the shares are in the name of Jan, who is the son of the first marriage, according to the records of the Superintendency of Companies. The capital increases that Jan has made in Telconet were made without taking into account Verduga’s signature, adds his lawyer. This newspaper searched for Tomislav’s version via telephone, but did not answer. His lawyer, Jorge Zavala, clarified that on this point he cannot pronounce himself because he does not follow the case. However, he pointed out that they have already sent the Prosecutor’s Office details of the accounts in the Merril Linch, from April 2012 to September 2013, the period in which the transactions were carried out. (I)

Source: http://www.elcomercio.com/actualidad/juez-eeuu-cuentas-tomislavtopic-odebrecht.html