The Sixth Section of the Provincial Court of Las Palmas will host the oral hearing on December 14 to address the appeal filed by one of the defenses in the Kokorev case. The Chamber investigates the alleged money laundering plot that originates from the commissions obtained from contracts for the sale of weapons and military equipment with the Government of Equatorial Guinea and that affects a tourist complex in Costa Teguise.
The hearing will take place at 9.45 am and will address the appeal by which one of the defenses requested that the jurisdiction of the trial be assumed by the Spanish National Court and not the Provincial Court that is handling the case now. The Sands Beach Resort SL complex is linked to the investigation carried out by Anti-Corruption against the Kokorev family, since the Russian couple nationalized in Spain and composed of Vladimir Kokorev and Julia Maleeva, took over the hotel complex and their son Igor Kokorev assumed its management.
According to the order issued by the Court of Instruction number 5 of Las Palmas in the preliminary proceedings, the company Phase Invest SL after receiving 23,800,000 euros from the alleged illegal sale of weapons acquired in 2004 a dozen apartments of the Sands Beach Resort, with Juli Maleeva as representative. Then, he participated in the loan agreement by Sands Beach to Phase Invest for more than two million euros. This was one of the examples offered by the Chamber to stage the way the defendants operated.
This alleged network operated with shell companies in different countries around the world. Among them, the United States, Spain, Ukraine, Denmark, Hungary, Equatorial Guinea or the British Virgin Islands.
According to the aforementioned order, the three members of the Kokorev family carried out between 1999 and 2011 alleged illegal or clandestine operations of sale of weapons and dual-use material to the State of Equatorial Guinea. At this point, the Chamber assessed at more than 450 million euros the transfer of money between the accounts of the Guinean Government.
Among the weaponry and military equipment was the sale of ships, combat helicopters, armored vehicles, fighter planes or dual-use military weaponry. According to this order, the investigated allegedly used a network of more than 45 companies to allegedly legalize the money. In particular, to legalize the profits obtained by inflating the costs of sale of military equipment to public funds of Equatorial Guinea and hide the payments made to military authorities and Guinean officials who participated in those cost overruns.
This investigation studies the diversion of the accounts of the Treasury of Equatorial Guinea to officials and authorities of the country through inflated invoices of military and armament material purchased in Ukraine.
At this point, the Kokorev family would have allegedly acted as an intermediary, directing the companies where the State of Guinea paid the inflated money. The Sixth Section of the Provincial Court of Las Palmas estimated at one hundred million euros the profits obtained only by the Kokorev-Maleeva family.
Also, the Kokorev family allegedly made use of figureheads who stayed in front of these companies and maintained ownership, while they remained in the shadows. Many of these companies were incorporated in tax havens.
At this point, they allegedly used the "fundamental and decisive participation of the tax advisor Juan José Arencibia.
