Not that it makes it less serious or anything, but Blandon & Young are hardly the only politicians being in cahoots with international crooks. Take for example Samuel Lewis Navarro, a PRD presidential hopeful and Minister of Foreign Affairs during the Martín Torrijos presidency.
Lewis Navarro is business partner of one Lord Ashcroft, an important donor to the British Conservative Party and entangled in a myriad of financial and bribery scandals in Belize and the rest of the Caribbean.
Last Saturday, The Guardian published the latest on Ashcroft’s involvement with a collapsed construction company linked to an alleged political corruption scandal in the Turks and Caicos Islands:
Ashcroft, the former deputy chairman of the Conservative party, has denied having any interest in Johnston International, which built a $6m mansion for the former premier of the Turks and Caicos Islands, Michael Misick, who is now the subject of an international arrest warrant after fleeing the Caribbean archipelago, having been accused of corruption.
Johnston was a significant employer in the Caribbean before it went under in 2010, as the property boom turned to bust. The company was responsible for some of the region’s largest developments, building marinas, airports, hotels and resorts.
Ashcroft told the London Stock Exchange in 1999 that he had sold Johnston, and has said he has “had no economic beneficial or legal interest” in the company since.
But a series of faxes to Ashcroft from the chief executive of Johnston, Allan Forrest, seen by the Observer, show that he was regularly updated on the company’s pitch to win contracts to build two new hospitals and an airport in the islands. The faxes, from 2004 and 2005, and headed with the Johnston International logo, spell out how Forrest proposed to structure its bid and inform Ashcroft of the costs.
In Panama, Samuel Lewis Navarro and Ashcroft are both directors of Panama Holdings Subsidiary Inc.
And what’s more: While Minister of Foreign Relations, Lewis Navarro appointed Ashcroft’s son, Anthony Michael Ashcroft, as Panama’s consul in Belize.
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