Write: Luis Allen.
The United States Government has now revealed the main reason for the series of sanctions against Horacio Cartes, by directly including Tabacalera del Este SA (Tabesa) among the firms prohibited from operating with the dollar, its financial system and with North American citizens. This despite the fact that HC had already disassociated itself from the firm, but for the United States, apparently there is a presumption that Cartes is only withdrawing nominally and continues to manage his main source of wealth through the other shareholders.
Significantly, they add and continue the sanctions against Horacio Cartes by the United States Government, seeking that the Colorado incumbent leave politics, as recognized by his own lawyer, Pedro Ovelar. This time it was the turn of the main HC company, Tabacalera del Este SA (Tabesa), but the boss ignores US pressure, hoping that a Republican victory in the elections on Sunday the 30th of this month will place him once again with enough power to face what is coming almost certainly: the feared extradition request from the Northern Justice.
In the final stretch of “D-day” an unquestionable political reality stands out, such as the devastating blow that implies for the ANR that its head Horacio Cartes is on the verge of being extradited to the United States, because after the sanction last week passed against his main company Tabesa, it can be said that the power of the North is already determined to put an end to the reign of HC, which is a mixture between legitimate businesses and not so holy ones.
The inclusion of Tabacalera del Este SA in the list of companies with a total ban on trading in the North American financial circuit and with the dollar, would seem to no longer make sense once Horacio withdrew from the company after selling his majority shares, like the same firm based in Hernandarias made it known through a statement after the sanction adopted on Friday, March 31.
But the issue apparently goes beyond the possibility that Tabesa continues to work “normally” according to the company’s own expressions in the message to public opinion, once the requirements of the sanction against HC in January have been met. past, where the tobacco company was not among the firms included in the blacklist.
But it was already implicit that Horacio had to cede or sell his shares, as also happened with the rest of his 70 or more component firms of the Cartes Group, because, in fact, the same company in its statement states that it was affected in practice by the US blockade ordered in January for operations in firms where HC held more than half of the shares, as was precisely the case with Tabesa.
Tabesa’s statement suggests that the decision of the United States against the company came as a bit of a surprise to the remaining shareholders, who thought that the problem had already been solved with the departure of Cartes from the company when he sold all of his shares. to the company, through the formula of “Treasury shares”, provided for in article 1,072 of the Civil Code, in a decision that was adopted at the extraordinary shareholders’ meeting held on March 22.
The “Heart of Stone”
Horacio Cartes assured that he will not resign from the ANR because his status as head of the governing board comes from a majority electoral mandate of the affiliates, but for the United States the heart of the matter is not so much in the factual-political power of the Patron, but in the continuity of his tobacco business behind the scenes, because from there he has received most of his great economic capacity for almost two decades, which allows him to finance his political activity with money of disputed origin.
This is what was already glimpsed with the “Corazón de Piedra” operation, revealed by Julian Assange’s “WikiLeaks” 12 years ago, when HC was preparing to join the ANR with the aim of becoming President of the Republic, which he finally achieved in 2013, causing the United States to suspend all investigations against Cartes and his tobacco business, for having to deal with him already as president of a country with which to negotiate issues involving complicated international relations, including the issue of Iran’s growing influence on the continent through the Chavista-Bolivarian left.
What Washington did not like at all has been the continuous search for political-factual power by HC, and its control of the Justice, the Prosecutor’s Office and part of Congress, after his departure from the government in 2018, which It was consolidated with the victory in the internship on December 18, where Horacio reached the Colorado title, despite the sanction he had already received from the USA with the loss of his visa on July 22, 2022.
Then came the sanctions in January of this year against various HC companies and the need to assign their shares to relatives or related persons, so that they could continue operating, and also the main tobacco business of Cartes, Tabacalera del Este (Tabesa ), was already greatly affected, as its own directors acknowledged in the referenced statement.
But for the United States there is a certain doubt that the Patron has really ceased to be such, which would be in the background of the direct sanction against Tabesa, which is like attacking the “heart of stone” of HC’s most emblematic business. , paraphrasing the nickname given by investigators from the FBI, the DEA and the US anti-smuggling agency, in the past decade, to the move made against Cartes’ main source of wealth, due to suspicions of his ties to the illicit cross-border traffic, money laundering and even international terrorism, always according to the statements of the United States ambassador, Marc Ostfield.
For the former Minister of the Interior, Arnaldo Giuzzio, there are no doubts after what happened in the Tabesa area, with the statement confirming an internal “Treasury” arrangement, after the sale of Cartes shares to the same company, which It makes us presume that HC continues to be the real owner of Tabesa, only that it no longer appears on paper but is under a new remote-control system, through family members or through people they trust completely.
The attack on the heart of the economic empire of HC also raises the extent to which its ability to withstand US pressure will go, regardless of the result of the elections on Sunday the 30th, since being on the “black list” of the United States is not logically a good option. Cover letter for any company in the legal business world.