Officials from Panama’s Prosecutor General’s Office on Thursday raided the offices of Panama Ports Company (PPC), a China-linked organization that up until recently controlled two key ports at the Panama Canal.
The raid was part of a probe into allegations that the company deliberately withheld information to the nation’s authorities of its management of the canal ports.
PPC is a subsidiary of Hong Kong-based C.K. Hutchison Holdings, a large company controlled by pro-communist businessman Li Ka-shing. Since 1997, and until recently, PPC controlled two important Panama Canal ports located at opposite ends of the trade route in the provinces of Balboa and Cristóbal. The key ports handle as much as 40 percent of the canal’s entire traffic.
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Following a lawsuit presented by Comptroller General Anel Flores last year, Panama’s Supreme Court ruled in January to declare the contracts that gave PPC control of the two ports unconstitutional. The lawsuit stemmed from extensive investigations and audits from both the Comptroller General’s office and Panamanian Attorney General’s office, which found numerous violations of the contract’s terms and irregularities in PPC’s handling of the ports that, according to Flores, caused over $1.2 billion in damages to Panama.
The Supreme Court’s ruling went into effect on Monday. The administration of conservative President José Raúl Mulino immediately acted upon the court’s ruling and ordered the state’s temporary occupation of the two ports, taking administrative and operational control of the facilities as the Panamanian state carries out a transition process towards new port management deals with other private companies.
The Panamanian newspaper La Prensa reported that a team of officials from the Prosecutor General’s Office led by prosecutor Azael Samaniego raided three PPC offices located at Panama City’s Terrazas de Albrook shopping mall with the assistance of the National Police’s Judicial Investigation Directorate (DIJ) and Panama’s Maritime Authority (AMP).
According to the newspaper, Prosecutor Samaniego did not disclose specific details but explained that all documentation seized by the officials will remain under the custody of the Public Ministry. The official reportedly explained that there is currently an “open criminal case” under the Criminal Code, but pointed out that to protect the investigation, he cannot specify what the alleged crime is at this stage of the investigation. Unnamed sources confirmed to La Prensa that PPC is believed to have withhold information of its operations at the Balboa and Cristobál ports.
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