Panama Papers snag two Dominican senators

Santo Domingo.- The senators of the provinces María Trinidad Sánchez and Dajabón, Alexis Victoria Yeb and David Sosa, are two legislators who, according to the Pandora Papers investigation, also appear with offshore companies.

The investigation by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) also reveals that 35 world leaders, including 14 Latin Americans, operated in tax havens to avoid public investigation.

The information provided by the journalist Alicia Orterga in the program El Informe, indicated that Victoria Yeb appears with the company Sonata Properties Agency, created in the British Virgin Islands, as the owner of JD Guerreo SRL, located in Herrera and that dedicated to the sale of pharmaceutical products

“The legislator declared it in his financial statement,” says the journalist.

Contrary to Yeb, the senator from Dajabón submitted in 2016 to Overseas Management Company the documents of the form of the company Magasin Suplidores, INC created that same year in Panama and dedicated to the purchase, sale and export of cement and all kinds of construction materials.

“David Sosa and his family are co-owners of Beller companies, a conglomerate that dates back 50 years in the border province and includes Ferretería Beller, Beller waters and a fuel station,” says El Informe.

This conglomerate is part of his financial statement but the “Offshore Magasin Suplidores is not in the documentation submitted.”

According to the journalist, the senator admitted through a telephone call that he does not declare offshore “not even in Internal Taxes due to ignorance since he did not know that he had to declare it.”

Sosa pointed out that it is a company that does not do business in the country, but in Haiti “buying cement through it to take it to the neighboring country.”

In Haiti, the senator has another company Magasin Nouveay Temps registered and that, according to a certificate presented by the journalist, pays his taxes but does not report it in the Dominican Republic either.

“I am going to agree with the auditors and those responsible to regularize my situation,” he told the journalist.

These papers also include President Luis Abinader who assured that he and his family used offshore companies to pay taxes in the country.