Here are those who live: Venezuelans of the most expensive building in Madrid
Lagasca 99 es un símbolo reciente de poder, en pleno centro de Madrid, que promete convertirse en un mito. Quienes compraron pisos en el edificio son parte de un reducido número de millonarios que conforman el elenco de este condominio de lujo, como si protagonizaran un spin-off de la serie española de televisión Aquí no hay quien viva, pero en versión high-end.
Although the large windows of this atypical marble and wood strength, which remember the battlements of a castle, also predict transparency, their owners and tenants actually strive to protect their identities.The discretion is key to many of those owners, who are walled in anonymity giving the property of the floor to a companies that, in some cases, leave clues to reach the final beneficiaries.
This trail allows us to affirm that at least five apartments, of the 44 that the real estate project has -of the award -winning Andalusian architect Rafael de la Hoz -belong to Venezuelans, unconventional entrepreneurs who have left trace inside and outside the country.Personalities from Mexico, the United States, Colombia and Peru are added, which now live in the most expensive building in the Spanish capital, whose square meter is quoted at 12,000 euros (about $ 13,600), on average.
If, as the saying of the real estate business says, the location is everything, this case illustrates it: in the heart of the Salamanca neighborhood, in a street, Lagasca, pregnant with boutiques, luxury stores and exclusive restaurants, and to acouple of blocks from the luxurious Serrano.But, in addition, the property comes truffled with multiple amenities: spa, pool, gym, meeting room and an English -style club, with millimetric first finishes, as described by the architecture study that designed the work.
The building obtained the construction permit in December 2016 and by August 2017 its promoter, Grupo Lar, had sold two out of three apartments.There was avidity for luxury.Fortunes of between 3.5 and 9 million euros were bet to receive apartments that reach 300, 400 and up to 700 square meters, according to the initial planes published on the project website, now offline.
Compared to the Great Caracas, where the majority of Venezuelan owners lived in the building, the square meter in the best area of the capital of Venezuela came to be valued at $ 600 in that same year of 2017, when Lagasca 99 debutedIn the real estate market.Faced with that native bargain, in any case, Venezuelans will have found good reasons to pay a millionaire premium in Madrid: to hold a property in Caracas then meant an investment without legal certainty that devalued the property and placed the homes of the Venezuelan capital between the Venezuelan capital betweenThe cheapest in Latin America, according to a report published by the Research Center in Finance of the Torcuato Di Tella University of Argentina.
Although by itself it does not constitute a indication of any crime or irregularity, the possibility of acquiring expensive properties, such as Lagasca 99, in a European market as revalued as Madrid, allows to recognize the existence of an elite of Venezuelan businessmen whose inclinations andCapabilities to buy villas and castles, real or urban, as retirement dwellings, contrast with the poor condition of their most common countrymen.In this contrast lies the public interest of the following profiles.
Eased Cadivi
How does a 68 -year -old Venezuelan engineer arrive to occupy the B15B apartment in Lagasca 99?Saverio Leggio Cassara is this owner, who stands out for having been a privileged actor in the plot of businessmen who received dollars from the National Currency Administration Commission (CADIVI), which managed a exchange control system, as strict as cumbersome and corrupt,Between 2003 and 2014.
Leggio has societies in Venezuela, Panama, New Zealand, the United States and the Dominican Republic.It is also linked to companies in Belize and Bahamas, as well as with some long -standing offshore on Cayman Islands and British Virgin Islands.
The Legio Cassara family, of Italian origin, received at least 220 million dollars at a preferential rate between 2004 and 2012. Francesco Leggio Lo Curto, who died in January 2013, father of Saverio Leggio, was the founder of the Walk and Calzados Factory Paseo andPetrochemistry Sima, an industrial complex producing a compound of wide use in the manufacture of plasticizers, alquidic and polyester resins.The open Cadivi online page indicates that Petrochemistry Sima received about 136.9 million dollars.Another 85.78 landed in the electricity distribution accounts C.A.(Distrellca) in the indicated period.According to the National Registry of Contractors (RNC), in Distuelca they have exercised as executives Saverio Leggio, his ex -wife Giovina Di Matteo, and the children of both, Francesco Saverio Leggio Di Matteo and Alessandra Joanna Leggio Di Matteo.
The Customs Import Genius database also offers figures that indicate that many currencies passed through both companies. PetrochemicalThe 58 million dollars.The purpose of this last company goes from the manufacture of footwear, through the production of cement, the import and export of merchandise, oil activity and the area of electricity.However, in its current website it points out that it is dedicated to the import and distribution of chemicals.
Soon, its operations with preferential dollars for alleged illicit exchange and capital legitimation would begin to ventilate in the media. "According to a high judicial source, [Saverio] Leggio would have scammed several entrepreneurs offering them to solve their problem in Cadivi where he claims to have everything resolved," the newspaper reported the Economy report in the October 11, 2013 edition. The media warned that Distuelca was also investigated for breaking several contracts with the State in which I had already charged advances. According to the State Contracting System, one of the district customers was Animal Nutrition Services, C.A. whose manager Della Polla de Simone had a manager who, along with Halmar Gibelli Gómez, acknowledged having washed money through exchange control in a trial that was followed in San Luis, Missouri, United States. To Animal C.A. services, Cadivi assigned 214.59 million preferential dollars.
In the Venezuelan courts, judicial files are housed against the companies of the Leggio family: Petrochemistry Sima C.A, Chemistry Oxal C.A.and INMOBILIARIA TORRE OXAL C.A.The legal representatives of the companies in those cases were Miguel Antonio Sierralta and Juan Carlos Cuenca Vivas.The first was the lawyer who participated in the scheme of fraudulent payments in Ecuador through the Unitary Regional Compensation System (Sucre) together with his son, Morris Lemig Sierralta Sucre.While Cuenca Vivas is current substitute magistrate of the Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice (TSJ) who, according to judicial sources, has a lot of influence on civil and commercial matters today, with closeness to Maikel Moreno, president of the highest court.
The legio have managed to knead a fortune with businesses within the country that had connections abroad, as well as have figured legal representatives of well -known societies.José Leggio Cassara, Saverio's brother, is a manager of the Grupo Continental GC, C.A.dedicated to "oil exploitation in general", according to the RNC.Another of the managers in this company is Ramiro José Sierralta González, a lawyer who was also on the Board of Directors of Derwick Associates of Venezuela S.A., the company directed by Alejandro Betancourt, accused of irregularities in the granting and execution of contracts in theElectric sector, which exceeded 2,000 million dollars.
Outside, Saverio Leggio is a shareholder of International Capital Investment Limited, an active company in New Zealand.In Bahamas it appears as a director of two companies and in Panama highlights the company Triumph Services Corp., which appears as first president Luis Maria Piñeyrua Pittaluga, who works in a law firm in Uruguay and is a manager of the Neo Zealand Pvci New Zealand Trust Trust Trust.PittalugaThe lawyer was one of those who designed the plot of the Lava Jato case in Brazil, with companies in Singapore, Belize and other destinations.It is striking because this Panamanian company has two companies registered in Belize (Crestwood Services Ltd and Metropole Corporation) and, in addition, the Legio company in New Zealand has a homonymous company in Hong Kong.
The divorce left the ex -wife of Saverio Leggio an apartment under the name of a society in Florida.And since heaven is the limit, this Venezuelan was enough to buy a Tobocomander brand plane, model 840, acronym YV1851.On January 10 of this year, Armando.Info sent a questionnaire to the email addresses of the Leggio family companies, without obtaining a response for the publication date of this report.
A marriage
Limitations?For Manuel Castro Gómez and Yaika Aponte Bolívar that word is not in the dictionary.For its business group, based on the industrial (and now undermining) city of Puerto Ordaz, Bolívar state, in southeastern Venezuela, there were all kinds of hiring: from minor businesses, such as filling the holes of a street, to others from maximumGreatness, how to build a dike.Neither were there when the Castro-Aponte marriage acquired the B24B apartment in Lagasca 99.
Castro Gómez y Aponte Bolívar mantienen desde entonces un grupo de empresas que, aunque modesto en tamaño, ha contado con el privilegio de la cercanía del Estado desde los tiempos de bonanza de Hugo Chávez y el reventón de los precios del petróleo de la década de 2000. El conglomerado en ciernes lo componen tres compañías registradas a nombre de Castro Gómez: Simano C.A., Proyectos y Construcciones P&H, y Unitec PC C.A. En las dos primeras está asociado con su esposa, Yaika, y con su cuñada, Yokira Liseth Aponte Bolívar; además está su hermano, José Antonio Castro Gómez. En la tercera está asociado con Héctor Ramón López Rodríguez.
In 2009, Simano had hiring with Ferroatlántica of Venezuela (Ferroven), state company dedicated to the marketing of ferroaleations, attached to the Venezuelan Corporation of Guayana (CVG).Also with the private acbl of Venezuela, dedicated to river transport in the Orinoco River, and with an ecological refinement of Venezuela.In all cases, as at least reflected in the National Registry of Contractors (RNC), the entrusted - Earth Movements and Coading of the Fire System Pipe System - was fulfilled.The Castro-Aponte marriage company was dedicated to everything that had to do with civil, mechanical, electric and oil engineering works.
New artic
— StephanKesting Tue Nov 08 15:48:02 +0000 2016
Lo que el mismo RNC delata es que hubo obras inconclusas que, al menos en parte, eran responsabilidad de P&H -nombre acuñado con el uso de las letras iniciales de padres e hijos-, como la represa de Tocoma, en el bajo Caroní, en el estado Bolívar.
Between 2012 (the year in which the hydroelectric complex) and 2014, the old electrification of the Caroní (Edelca), then National Electric Corporation (Corpoelec) should be ready, hired the OIV-Tocoma Consortium (which includes Odebrecht, Brazil, Impregilo S.P.A., from Italy, and Vinccler, Venezuela) to build the work.
Este consorcio fue el que otorgó contratos a P&H para la construcción de un dique. El RNC señala que en 2014 el proyectó quedó en 4% de avance.Hay otras obras civiles con la misma Odebrecht que están especificadas en 81% de avance.
But if the controversial case of Odebrecht in Venezuela torted tangentially to the Castro-Aponte through these contracts, other companies of the State also did, as was the case of CVG-Ferrocasa, a company created to “promote urban development” in the area of households.
De 2013 a 2018, P&H contrató con Ferrocasa para la remoción de tierra en terrenos destinados a la construcción de conjuntos residenciales. Una vez más, el RNC señala que en una primera obra, de 2013 a 2016, se avanzó 20%; en otra, de 2013 a 2018, el porcentaje de ejecución fue de 4%. El abanico de contratos también incluyó a la Alcaldía Socialista Bolivariana de Caroní, entonces al mando de José Ramón López. Este alcalde fue destituido en 2015 y luego juzgado por “peculado doloso, concierto con contratista y evasión de proceso licitatorio”. Los contratos se firmaron para la reparación y asfaltados de calles. El lunes 10 de enero los reporteros de este medio enviaron un cuestionario a un correo electrónico personal de Manuel Castro Gómez, para obtener su versión, pero no hubo respuesta hasta la fecha de publicación de esta nota.
A slip
Although Lagasca 99 proposes exclusivity and discretion, the building with a futuristic glass skin has not managed to hide another of its Venezuelan owners: Luis Otero Cervela bought the A3A.
Otero Cervela has been a member of the Financial Financial Moris Beracha.During the beginnings of the first government of Hugo Chávez, Beracha had a name on Wall Street, as well as important companies related to telecommunications, finance, food and real estate investments sectors.His area of influence reached the high Venezuelan government, where he was related to the former Minister of Finance and former governor of Aragua, Rafael Isea, today exiled in the United States.One of the most important investment companies was Celistic Holdings, which operated in the telecommunications market in Latin America, with offices in Spain.It is there that Luis Otero Cervela accompanies him as vice president of the Board of Directors, as of 2006, also as an attorney in 2013 and counselor in 2015, according to the Mercantile Registry of Spain (BORME).
Another of the companies in which they had links was Pan American Ventures SL, based in Madrid, and that was dedicated to the acquisition and management of representative values of the own funds of non -resident entities in Spanish territory.Otero Cervela was president for a year of the company constituted in 2009, when Moris Beracha was a single administrator and vice president of it.By 2020, Beracha continued to operate with the holding.
The most recent company in Luis Otero Cervela as a single administrator is Aeronautical Lease Management SL, constituted in 2019 and dedicated exclusively to the air transport rental.However, his businesses came to extend to New Zealand.In society with his wife Francisca Romasanta Rodríguez, the Renaissance Fiduciary Services Limited, dedicated to fiduciary services operated between 2010 and 2014.
Romasanta, also administrator and businesswoman, appears mentioned in an investigation that began with the Swissleaks project, a massive filtration of fiscal data of the Swiss branch of the HSBC Bank, which spread the italo-francé-Franco Computer Hervé Falciani.The names of thousands of clients from 203 countries came to public light and, in 20215, their stories were published in more than 45 countries through the Alliance of the newspaper Le Monde de Paris and the International Consortium of Research Journalists (ICIJ, ICIJ,for its acronym in English), in which Armando.info also participated revealing part of the fortunes in the Swiss banks from Venezuela.
In Spain, the media published cases related to financial transactions to various banks, and the transfer of values from BNP Paribas Securities Services to Santander Investment is mentioned.In the list of transfers executed by Otero Cervela's wife, he highlighted a series of movements that made his values to BBVA on March 9, 2013, for an amount of 18,273,743 euros, according to a judicial document of Madrid released byThe Spanish newspaper Populi.
In December last year, Luis Otero Cervela opened a finance blog.Armando.info tried to contact him on that way without obtaining a response to the closing date of the report.
An inheritance
"Unique, unrepeatable, unattainable": thus presented a Spanish company specialized in investment and management of real estate assets to Lagasca 99. That did not stop the aspiration of the Venezuelan Ana Gisela Sosa, 66, to reach the cusp of the desirable for herand his two 28 -year -old twin daughters, and add to his property the C1A apartment.
The same management of the property is related to two companies that do not have any public activity on the Internet.The first, Alececi 1ac SL, created on September 4, 2019 and whose commercial object is the management and administration of real estate property, is in the name of Ana Gisela Sosa.The second, Textile Society Cezile SL, dedicated to the preparation of clothing and accessories, constituted on August 24, 2020, keeps Ana Cecilia Nuñez Sosa as director, based in Spain.Her twin, Ana Alexandra, lives in Los Angeles, United States.
His public profile shows Nuñez Sosa as fashion influencers under the auspices of his mother, with a lifestyle that has led them to travel the world.They studied to specialize in the business and both have had a brief step through different agencies of the design industry, creation and marketing, at least until 2018. In the Instagram social network you can see different publications with the #THeZOZAZAH label and,In 2016, they made a presentation at an event at the Grand Tower of Panama, which is very little trace.
For that date, Ana Gisela Sosa drove multiple businesses in Panama.She there concentrated a business network of at least ten societies linked to the real estate and food sector, according to Open Corporats.There is no evidence that she has also dedicated himself to fashion in Panama.Some societies of Ana Gisela Sosa kept them with her brother, Alejandro Humberto Sosa, a year younger than her, and others with her firstborn daughter, Luisana Ávila Sosa.In 2009, she ventured with her eldest daughter and her son -in -law of her, Frank Escalona Aponte, to open a restaurant in the old city of Panama, whose culinary proposal was from the renowned Venezuelan chef Eduardo Moreno.
The brothers Ana Gisela and Alejandro Humberto are the unique heirs of the succession Alejandro Sosa Báez, and through it they have exercised demands before the Venezuelan justice for several properties that fell into legal limbos and expropriations.The TSJ records a series of demands of the succession for land lots located in different parts of the large capital and its surroundings.
In 1996 they initiated a judicial process against the tenant of a land of 2,415 square meters and the bienthuries in Bello Campo, Chacao municipality, of the Miranda state, who failed to comply with the contract not to yield, transfer or sub -arrest the real estate, losing control of them . In 2007, the Sosa brothers asked the authorities for compensatory compensation for the kidnapping and illegal occupation of a land of 3,002 square meters that the succession sold nine years before to a construction company in Guatire, Zamora municipality of the Miranda state, but was occupied by the first former mayor of the area, representative of the fifth republic movement -Hugo Chávez's partisan at the beginning of his government. In 2008, they were sued for an excess payment made to the succession due to a sale of two lands and a house in the cathedral parish, of the Libertador municipality of Caracas, for which they paid a million dollars. In 2010, the succession executed a trial for eviction of an industrial shed in the Santa Teresa parish of the Libertador municipality in Caracas.
Unlike Ana Gisela Sosa, his brother Alejandro Humberto Sosa assumed the family business as a real estate investor and multiplied the fortune that is evidenced in the network of companies abroad.One of them was in society with banker Víctor Vargas, who was inactive after 2003, constituted in the United States.
The trail of Ana Gisela Sosa and her brother continues in the United States, Panama, Curacao, Spain, Dominican Republic and Costa Rica.
Armando.info contacted Ana Cecilia Sosa for this report, but up to date of publication no response has been received.
A banker
Tomás Niembro Concha, a Venezuelan economist of Spanish origin who lives between Miami and Madrid, owns the C2A apartment in Lagasca 99. For a long time it was the right hand of Víctor Vargas in the banking business and held the position of treasurer in Albank Corp Corp of the group of the groupB.O.D.Property of the so -called Chávez banker, among other responsibilities.
He held executive positions in the financial industry since the time of the extinct Banco Latino, which was affected during the 1994 Venezuelan banking crisis. Since the beginning of the 2000s he kept closeness with the companies of Vargas in B.O.D.Value de Bolsa and Venezuelan Investment Portfolio C.A., the Paragua that allowed the Barinés banker to enter different areas, from the automaker to the real estate.Precisely in this last area, Niembro held the position of general manager.
For more than a decade he accompanied Vargas in his adventures and even held an executive position at Banco del Orinoco N.V., the Curacao Bank of Group B.O.D., which, the Allbank in Panama, collapsed in 2019.
Despite the stamps, Niembro and the Venezuelan businessman Isaac Sultan Cohen were behind the negotiations for the purchase of the European Finance Bank, in 2014, when in Spain the pitch of the economic crisis was lived in Spain and that led the European country to offer theirvalues to enter capital.The business seems to have not been completed or, at least the documents of the owners of the BEF do not reflect any of the Venezuelans.However, Sultan Cohen knew howReal estate businesses.
Finally, Niembro was handling a small bank with origin in Puerto Rico, Nodus Bank, and is director in the company Inmobiliarios and Values Ban C.A.(Div Ban C.A.) that specializes in “Investment, Development and Real Estate Promotion” of exceptional and high -end real estate projects in Caracas, according to the LinkedIn Professional Network.
The final sketch of this story has not arrived.Lagasca 99 is the set where bankers and entrepreneurs are found in common a gentilicio as Venezuelans.Some arrived at the old continent to continue their businesses and others to undertake new directions, but not in any way.Everyone decided to do it with the glittering lifestyle proposed by the Madrid building.
N. de R./ Errata/ Change: At the request of Mr. Moris Beracha, on January 24, 2022, modifications were introduced both in the paragraph that begins: "Although Lagasca 99 proposes exclusivity and discretion ...", as in the next(Suppression of 14 lines) .originally, there it was claimed that Mr. Beracha had participated in the Ponzi scheme of Francisco Illaramendi, typified as a crime in a Connecticut court in 2015. However, Mr. Beracha arrived at the writing of Armando.Info the documents that verify that, after a "confidential agreement" with the trustee appointed by the judge of the case, all the legal actions against Mr. Beracha and the entities controlled by him were discarded.
