For the following thirty-three years, Álvarez Renta was known as the "King Midas" of the Dominican Republic, since his deals always made both sides significant amounts of money.
Prior to the Baninter banking scandal, Álvarez Renta had accompanied former Dominican President Hipólito Mejía on many of his trips abroad, and was appointed ambassador to France on April 2, 2003.
He decided to accept the appointment as part of his retirement, in order to effect positive change for the country by helping it negotiate a Free Trade Agreement with the European Union.
In response to the announcement, Álvarez Renta took out full-page advertisements in the press, in which he declared he was innocent of all the charges made by the Central Bank.
The report said that overdrafts and loans totaling RD$3.83 billion were erased at the start of this year in favor of the company Bankinvest, S.A., presided and managed by Luis Álvarez Renta.
He was accused by an administration that ended up being overrun with major corruption charges in a speech written by another financier, Andres Dauhajre, Jr., who had been an advisor to President Mejia and a lifelong rival of Álvarez Renta’s.
Mejia's administration had challenged those contracts and lost, and many people were interested in acquiring them before the company's sale to a Spanish conglomerate was completed.
(As a sidenote, these contracts would become a large part of the execution process in the lawsuit against Álvarez Renta in the United States, and were eventually turned over to the Central Bank of the Dominican Republic.)
Ten of the original eleven charges filed in the criminal action against Álvarez Renta in the Dominican Republic were dropped before trial.
The defense is headed by the famed attorney Marino Vinicio Castillo, whose primary argument is that the authorities under Mejia's presidency (2000–2004) caused the bank's collapse.
It was later discovered that Álvarez Renta was the president of Maravedi, a company owned by Miguel Vargas Maldonado, the candidate of the PRD for the next presidential elections.