Between November 2011 and October 2016, Chinese cement importer Juan Carlos Bolaños Rojas and his “former employee”, Dai Wuping, created five offshore companies in Panama and Hong Kong. Two of these companies manage the loan of more than $ 20,000,000 of public money in Hong Kong and Panama, granted by the Bank of Costa Rica to import Chinese cement.
The five companies only exist on paper and do not have offices in either Panama or Hong Kong. An employee of the Panamanian law firm that created them confirmed that the contact addresses of the companies are the offices of the same Acha & Asociados.
The companies are:
-JCB Constructora y Alquiler S.A. Panama (constituted in November 2011 and whose president is Juan Carlos Bolaños).
-Silk Road Panamá S.A. (Constituted in April 2016 and whose president is Juan Carlos Bolaños).
-Sinocem Panamá S.A. (Constituted in October of 2016 and whose president is Juan Carlos Bolaños).
-Sinobuilding Materials Hong Kong Inc. Panama (constituted in October 2015 and whose president is Dai Wuping. In January 2016 it transfered 100% of the shares to the company in Panama).
-Sinobuilding Materials Hong Kong Limited (established in October 2015). Both the Panama and Hong Kong companies were created two days after the BCR approved the Sinocem Costa Rica credit line.
Offshore or paper companies are also known as “ghost societies”, and are defined as financial assemblies in tax havens. They are based in third countries and grant asset protection, confidentiality and privacy, as well as tax advantages.The relationship between Bolaños Rojas and Dai Wuping dates back years. Dai Wuping was the sales representative for Latin America of Chinese machinery brand LiuGong Machinery. The machinery of LiuGong is distributed in Costa Rica by the JCB Group and Bolaños’ wife is the president of LiuGong distributor S.A. Costa Rica since 2008.
A complaint by Sinocem China describes Wuping as “a former employee of Sinocem Costa Rica”. In the same complaint, the eastern company identifies Bolaños and Wuping’s companies as part of “the same business group”, that is, the bank gave the credit to a paper company located in Panama, which buys the cement and it resells it at a higher price to Sinocem Costa Rica, which sells at an even higher price in the national market.