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Tax havens, on the route of Rafael Correa’s presidential aircraft
Posted On 14 Aug 2018
Ecuadornews:
In the list of destinies of the presidential aircraft – the Legacy 600 and the Falcon 7X – tax havens and exotic places appear to which the ex-President Rafael Correa did not attend or that, at least, do not appear in the decrees of the official trips that he issued.
According to the records of the Directorate of Civil Aviation (DAC), between October 12 and 17, 2015, the Falcon 7X was in Wilmington, State of Delaware (United States), considered a tax haven. Shortly before, between September 20 and 24, that plane landed in Palm Beach (Florida).
Other trips were made to Seattle and Nashville (Tennessee). The latter were made by the Legacy 600.
This plane was just 7 hours in Silao, Guanajuato state (Mexico). The aircraft left on February 10, 2013 at night, and returned the next day at dawn, from that same place.
The former Undersecretary of Public Financing, William Vásconez Rubio, who was in charge of obtaining external credits during Correa’s administration, made a stop at Christ Church, on the island of Barbados, before heading to Dubai to negotiate investments. The flight was made on January 21, 2017. The official omitted that stop on his trip report.
Trinidad and Tobago, another island in the Caribbean classified as a tax haven, also appears as a destination for the Legacy 600, which is not long-range and needs stopovers to refuel.
The final destination of these flights is known to the Special Air Transport Group (GTAE) and the Presidency of the Republic. But these institutions did not respond to the request for information in this Journal.
The appointment of Pope Francis, the first Latin American to be named supreme pontiff, led Rafael Correa to visit the Vatican three times.
Correa was at the inaugural Mass and enthronement of Francisco in March 2013 and was accompanied by his mother, Norma Delgado Rendón, Ramiro Larrea Santos, and the vice president and then legal secretary, Jorge Glas and Alexis Mera.
The second trip to the Vatican was at the end of April 2015. This time the delegation was composed of the then Foreign Minister Ricardo Patiño; the vice president of the Assembly, Marcela Aguiñaga, and other officials. Fander Falconí Benítez, current Minister of Education, was also a guest.
The reason for this trip, according to Executive Decree 659, was “to respond to the invitation of the Vatican authorities, such as the Sustainable Development Solutions Network of the United Nations, to address the awareness of the values of sustainable development in coherence with the values of the main religious traditions that points to the publication of a new papal encyclical on the environment “.
His last trip to the Vatican was to participate in a meeting on the Encyclical Centesimus Annus, which he attended after presenting the edition of the Royal Tour on Ecuador, in New York and Chicago.
For this trip to the Vatican, the delegation was composed of six people and the only one who was not a government official was the rector of the Catholic University (PUCE), Father Fernando Ponce León.
344 trips made the two presidential aircraft in the period of Rafael Correa, according to official documents.
185 trips are not included in the executive decrees of Correa nor is the final destination they had. (I)
