The State escaped Spain's biggest business scandal when the Central Bankrefused to admit Gescartera into the Irish market, writes Arthur Beesley
It was a scandal that put a flamboyant financier with a penchant for slick cars and Armani suits behind bars. Nuns, orphans, navy pensioners and the blind lost millions.
Inquiries were initiated - and heads rolled. Ireland was bypassed in the affair that gripped Spain. But only just.
Happily, the Republic escaped involvement in Spain's biggest business scandal when the Central Bank refused to admit an ailing and allegedly fraudulent fund management firm into the Irish market. It was a shrewd move.
More than €100 million in the red, the disgraced firm Gescartera is going nowhere. Its losses have hit more than 2,000 investors drawn from the bastions of Spanish society. Those burned include the trust for orphans of the civil guard, religious orders, an Archbishop, police officers, showbiz starlets and the national association for the blind.
Enticed by promises of healthy returns on their savings, all lost heavily when their money disappeared from Gescartera.
With parliamentary and high court inquiries set up last year, the affair has already resulted in the resignation of the junior finance minister and the chairwoman of the stock exchange commission, Ms Pilar Valiente.
As the scandal deepened, nepotism, graft and greed were exposed on a grand scale.
There was excuse-making of a colourful variety. One Bishop said it was his Christian duty to get the best returns on donations by the faithful by investing in Gescartera.
The company's founder, Mr Antonio Camacho, was detained without bail last year pending the investigations.
Owner of 100 suits and 40 pairs of sunglasses designed by Giorgio Armani, he also employed a platoon of bodyguards. He organised jobs for his pals and trips for them on private jets.
In one case, a vice-president of the stock market regulator received a Cartier watch as a gift while two of its inspectors secured nice posts at Gescartera.
All very lavish, but as the losses mounted, Mr Camacho was allegedly inventing increasingly complex and devious means of hiding the losses.
The web was wide. It appeared there were tip-offs from the stock market regulator and allegations that officials helped Gescartera to conceal its losses.
The junior finance minister was alleged to have arranged meetings that helped Mr Camacho secure large business from a lottery-running charity for the blind.
Mr Enrique Gimenez-Reyna resigned, but he denied links with Gescartera except that he had lodged his own savings with the company. He is a brother of Ms Pilar Gimenez Reyna, Gescartera's president and a woman whose diary was peppered with references to telephone calls made to Ms Valiente at the stock exchange commission.
When the fall came, it was hard. Gescartera's trading licence was suspended last July, opening the wider scandal.Yet in late 1998, the company's losses were less than €27 million and it was trying to trade its way out of crisis.
Spain's Security and Exchange Commission was on trail so an attempt was made to move its Madrid-based stock dealing operation to Dublin.
According to a person familiar with the scene, Gescartera's then director general, Mr José María Ruiz de la Serva, spent three days in Dublin trying to establish a base for the company under the IFSC tax regulations.
The Central Bank was alive to the danger and refused to licence the operations. The bank does not talk about such dealings. But there are indications that officials were concerned that Gescartera planned to manage the operation from Madrid while trading in Dublin to benefit from a generous corporation tax regime.
It didn't wash.
