Banco Latino

[1] It had a good relationship with the government, such that ministries moved their accounts to the bank, and the army and the state-owned oil company PDVSA entrusted their pension funds to Latino trust managers.

But failed ventures in real estate and stock market investment saw Tinoco desperate to raise funds from depositors, and in 1993 it paid 105% interest on one-year certificates of deposit, more than double Venezuela's 1993 inflation rate of 46%.

[1] The New York Times reported in 1994 that Late last fall, when Banco Latino officials began to realize that their house of cards was collapsing, they started transferring hundreds of million of dollars overseas.

In the final frenetic days, one bank director foresaw judicial orders on freezing assets and sold his million-dollar mansion, Another officer, Folco Falchi, the bank's coordinator for international investments, was reportedly seen loading suitcases stuffed with dollars into his corporate jet on the Caribbean island of Curacao.

[1]However, after almost ten years of international litigation, all plaintiffs and directors of Banco Latino were declared innocent of criminal charges, and all suits brought against them were dismissed without prejudice.

It was proven through verifiable court documents that the Venezuelan government never had a case against Banco Latino or its directors and managers to begin with.