As we reported earlier [6], the former chief of the IMF Rodrigo Rato, who was succeeded in 2007 by another scandalous figure, Dominique Strauss-Khan, was recently put under investigation by Spanish authorities for money-laundering, benefiting from a tax amnesty to repatriate previously undeclared offshore funds. This is in addition to at least one previous investigation into his role as chairman of Caja Madrid, the failed savings bank, and its successor Bankia.
And, unlike every single JPM banker pretty much ever, moments ago Rato became the second former IMF head in several years (following DSK), to be placed under arrest.
#ÚLTIMAHORA [7]: Rodrigo Rato, detenido por presunto fraude y blanqueo de capitales http://t.co/QfckJaNyOa [8] pic.twitter.com/pkpeiBhgj2 [9]
— La Vanguardia (@LaVanguardia) April 16, 2015 [10]
From El Pais [11], google translated::
The former vice president of the Government and former director general of the International Monetary Fund, Rodrigo Rato, has been arrested after a search of his home, practiced by the Tax Agency at the request of the Office of Madrid, according to EFE. Rato has left his home accompanied by several officers who have gotten into a police car waiting at the door of his house in a quiet street in the Salamanca district of Madrid.
Upon his release, he was not handcuffed but one of the officers, introduced him in the car, grabbing the neck. "Sinverguenza" was one of the few words he was heard during transport. Then the agents who carried out the registration, for more than three hours, have come out with at least four boxes of documents. Subsequently, there have been directed by the former minister, the Castelló street, where the former vice president's office and which follows the record. In this building, agents have covered the windows with cardboard.
According to reported sources of the investigation, the judge had to sign an arrest warrant for former IMF chief could leave his home in a police car and continue logs out of your home.
The charges are levied on Rato fraud, concealment of assets and money laundering.
While it is notable that Rato apparently did not have enough cash with which to pay off the prosecuting judge and have the case against him dropped, one wonders what the odds are for Christine Lagarde to complete the trifecta of arrests of people who are in the one position which has become the most cursed in the New Paranormal world.
Because while the IMF was originally created to pay for "bail outs", in recent years its former heads are far more concerned with paying just the "bail."
His arrest caught on tape:
