The name of the acting Spanish industry, energy and tourism minister, José Manuel Soria, is one of the names that appeared on Monday in the papers from the office of the Panamanian Mossack Fonseca, according to El Confidencial today. On September 23, 1992, the office registered the UK company, UK Lines Limited, in the Bahamas and appointed Tomás Poggio, Méndez Fernández de Lugo and José Manuel Soria as trustees.
In statements to La Sexta, the politician insisted that the offshore operation was a broker of the family firm. The company was dissolved in March 1995, a few weeks before the election campaign that would see José Manuel Soria win the mayorship of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. ??
However, the name of the minister was erased from the documents well before, in November 1992. A letter sent to the Bahamas office of Mossack Fonseca asked for the company trustees to be changed, as one of them “had been erroneously appointed”. In place of José Manuel Soria it asked that the minister’s brother, Luis Alberto Soria, be appointed.??
The intermediary who created this company through Mossack was the Canal Trust Company. This firm, which depends on BBVA Privanza Jersey, had been used to create businesses that hid the assets of bank clients, according to previous dealings. Judge Baltasar Garzón was the one who investigated BBVA’s financial concerns abroad.
