MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Chilean Navy purchase of Dutch frigates under scrutiny

Weapons dealer Guillermo Ibieta will face questioning this week about a possible link between his company and four second-hand frigates purchased from the Netherlands for the Chilean Navy in 2005, according to Chilean daily La Tercera.

Already under investigation for a bribery case related to tanks purchase in 1998, Ibieta is currently under scrutiny by Judge Manuel Valderrama and prosecutor Carlos Gajardo after a link was found between Ibieta’s firm, Eurotechnology, and a former marine involved in the Dutch vessel transaction.

“In total I received between US$300,000 to 400,000” said Capt. Juan Tapia Villalón in a declaration to the attorney general on March 22. “The monies were all transferred to me directly from Eurotechnology, Guillermo’s company”.

Tapia justified the sum as payment for providing Dutch shipyard Royal Schelde with technical data necessary to recondition the used Karel Doorman class vessels that the Chilean Navy acquired for US$350 million. He added that the money was also used to cover the cost of his travelling between Chile and Europe from 2002 to 2006.

The nature and sum of Tapia’s payment, and the fact that it was not declared when he entered Chile, have piqued the justice department’s interest. Judge Valderrama is heading an investigation to determine whether or not Ibieta functioned as a middleman in the transaction. There is also a concern that he may have used the funds to bribe officials overseeing the multi-million dollar transaction.

“The process was a fairly straightforward one” Dutch Ambassador Johan Van Der Werff told The Santiago Times on Thursday. Van Der Werff confirmed that he was familiar with the case but wasn’t an intermediary in the transaction.

“I personally cannot comment on the specifics between the Dutch shipyard and the Chilean shipyard because it is a matter between two private companies,” he said. “But this was essentially a government-to-government purchase. There could not have been an intermediary.”

During 2009, Chile’s Investigative Police (PDI) determined that Ibieta received a US$7.5 million payment from the Dutch intermediary Rotterdam Droogdok Maatschappij (RDM) during a Chilean purchase of 202 Leopard I tanks from the Netherlands. The case was notorious because Ibieta’s payment constituted 14% of the total US$53.7 million paid out by the Chilean Armed Forces, which led to suspicions of kickbacks being paid to then active members of the military.

Two former soldiers have been investigated in the case, which the PDI opened in 2009. So far no convictions have been made.

By Ivan Ebergenyi – The Santiago Times