Prosecution begins preliminary investigation for money laundering in Territorial Bank

The Prosecution’s Office began yesterday, Monday, the preliminary investigations over the alleged money laundering in the Territorial Bank, which was suspended by the Banking Board over liquidity and solvency problems.

Paul Ponce, Guayas provincial prosecutor, said that a “reserved investigation” that seeks to identify “those responsible for the act, accomplices or persons concealing the act” has begun.

Outskirts of the Territorial Bank in Guayaquil.

In the resolution JB-2012-2433 of the Banking Board, of the 17th of this month, which provides for the suspension of operations of the entity, also it is being questioned the validity of the $ 17,774,137.97 used to capitalize the bank.

Part of the resolution points out that “the risk matrix that was applied by the bank for preventing money laundering is not updated in accordance with the regulations in force, and the entity has no financial or transactional profiles of customers, therefore, due-diligence procedures to transactions that generated the amount of $ 10 million on contributions for future capitalization, were not observed. ”

Moreover, the Superintendent of Banks and Insurance, Pedro Solines said that “so far there are three financial institutions very interested in acquiring the bank “. He said that he extended the deadline for the proposals until today at 14:00.