If it weren’t for Facebook, I’d have never heard of William and Roberto Isaias.
My experience of real space has, for the greater part, shrunk to my desktop, more precisely, it’s 20-inch graphic arts monitor; my experience of cyberspace, however small, has expanded to cover the camel path from Riyadh to Islamabad. As readers know, it’s easy to hang up, as it were, in one active war zone or another and reflect on so much needless and pointless horror and suffering.
Crime in South America?
Easily overlooked.
However, some crime would seem cousin to conflict.
* * *
The Isaias brothers have been fugitives from their native Ecuador for more than a decade — sentenced in absentia for embezzling millions as the bank they ran there was collapsing.
The Isaias brothers now live in Coral Gables, Fla., running several successful businesses, and they have never been charged in the U.S. But back home in Ecuador, they’re wanted men.
Exclusive: Federal Probe Into New Jersey Sen. Menendez Is Widening | NBC New York – 1/24/2014.
* * *
The judge indicated that the defendants “may have committed the acts alleged by Ecuador”. The problem is that “the way in which Ecuador has tried to correct the supposed errors of the defendants is inconsistent with the regulations and laws of the United States of America.”
Ecuador lost trial against Isaias brothers in Miami | EcuadorTimes.net | Breaking News, Ecuador News, World, Sports, Entertainment
Furthermore, Thornton determined that the pleadings and evidence on file show that “there is no genuine issue as to any material fact … (and) as a matter of law” to the claims of the government of Ecuador against the Isaias brothers.
The government of Ecuador’s power isn’t as far-reaching as it’d hoped | Voxxi – 6/18/2013.
Oh boy.
Anyone care to dive off the deep end into international finance and law?
From the sound of it, at a glance, a gloss, a quick look, the capitalists threatened by the socialists picked up their own marbles and fled to Miami, launched new businesses, and today represent, wonder of wonders, an American Success Story.
Rocio Gonzalez’s article in Voxxi goes on to note: “The defendants show reports from the Superintendency of Banks that show the cause of Filanbanco’s bankruptcy being ill administration from the government.”
Pissing war, we call that.
Finally, from Gonzalez, a full quote from the American court:
“As previously discussed, Ecuador does not seek to enforce a judgment. Without a judgement of liability recognizable under U.S. law, Ecuador’s attempt to seize the defendants’ property in the U.S. is inconsistent with U.S. law and policy,” the Miami-Dade County judge wrote.
* * *
In the piece that tops the works cited on this page, a video quotes former ambassador to Ecuador Linda Jewell as saying, “The fact that the Isaias brothers continue to live a life of luxury in the U.S. while their account holders are suffering in Ecuador has been a constant concern between the U.S. and Ecuador since their flight.”
That’s what she said – but you have the court’s finding: the brothers are wanted for trial, not judgment, and, logically, the Correa government has not produced a “judgment of liability recognizable under U.S. law,” so what this really looks like is state seizure of private property by a socialist government.
Not surprisingly, the Isaias defense offers a refrain so familiar as to be trite to conservative ears and legal eagle minds:
“And that is the problem of the Isaias brothers — they have committed the crime of being rich in a poor country.”
Exclusive: Federal Probe Into New Jersey Sen. Menendez Is Widening | NBC New York – 1/24/2014.
“Judge Thornton is not concerned with the human rights of the bank’s clients that were affected by this bankruptcy, many of which who no longer exist because they are no longer living,” Bravo insisted.
The judge from Florida that ruled in favor of the Isaías brothers did not defend the human rights of bank’s clients | ANDES – 6/13/2013.
* * *
Back when Edward Snowden, intelligence industry leader extraordinaire, was looking for a new home, Ecuador’s government, this suggested by an NPR note on the matter, used opportunity to press its extradition request for the bankers Isaias Dessum.
Today, New Jersey Senator Robert Menendez (D) has become the object of an investigation or two, one of them involving the ties into the brothers Dessum whom much of the press has characterized as “fugitive bankers”. Related to that note:
Menendez spokeswoman Tricia Enright tonight said the senator’s office has not heard from investigators and that Menendez believed the family had been “politically persecuted” in Ecuador “including through the confiscation of media outlets they owned which were critical of the government.”
Feds reportedly looking into Robert Menendez for allegedly helping fugitive bankers | NJ.com – 1/23/2014.
Why shouldn’t they be helped?
Given the Correa government’s investment in its spin on the events of the 1990s culminating in the collapse of its banking industry, and add to that its pursuit of assets disconnected from due process, it would seem unlikely that the brothers would get other than a show trial.
“The ruling finally recognizes that there are no laws or due process in Ecuador,” said Roberto Isaias, 68. “I hope that the Ecuadorian government to set and do not proceed with this gamble to follow behind things […] It’s over. What we want is peace “.
The Ecuadorian authorities are considering an appeal.
Miami-Dade judge rules in favor of Ecuadorian former businessmen | Human Rights Ecuador | Analysis of the human rights situation in Ecuador – 6/10/2013.
In that article too, the theme of the resentments of the poor, and of the Correa government, recur:
“[The brothers] have lived in their mansions in Miami, enjoying their luxury yachts and exotic vehicles, outside the scope of the warrants,” according to the lawsuit filed in 2009, and which mentions at least $ 20 million brothers that accumulate in properties in Miami-Dade.
Who and what diminished the value of the assets — the economy of Ecuador — in the 1990s — thieving bankers or the appetite of a socialist state for private capital?
I don’t know and don’t have a swift way of finding out the answer to that question.
One would have to exhume the ecology of Ecuador’s economy in the 1990s and lay it out in plain sight.
Probably, Ecuador has recovered what it may and will not obtain Isaias Dassum brother assets in the United States by want of socialist pique alone.
As for the most recent in “Get Bob!” the senator, I defer to The Wire:
The scandal surrounding New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez has evolved from a sex scandal to a donor scandal to a weird mystery about who set him up, with the FBI talking to sugar baron brothers and an ex-CIA operative. Last fall, the Daily Caller showed videos of women who said Menendez had paid them for sex in the Dominican Republic while partying with a wealthy Florida eye doctor, Salomon Melgen. The women later said they were paid to make the claims. Then Menendez came under scrutiny for intervening with the Dominican government to help Melgen’s port-security firm and intervening with the U.S. government to help Melgen’s Florida clinic when it was charged with overbilling. Now the FBI is trying to figure out who plotted to bring down Menendez with the fake sex story in the first place.
The Bob Menendez Scandal Has Gotten So Weird – The Wire – 5/17/2013.
And on the other hand: Report: Feds probe Bob Menendez on Equador banker links – POLITICO.com – 1/23/2014.
So it goes . . . .
Additional Reference
Bank Crisis Leaves 4,360 Unemployed – BNamericas
1998–99 Ecuador banking crisis – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Ecuador Seizes Banking Firms | London Progressive Journal – 7/11/2008.
# # #
