Statement of Francesco Corallo

And we, the free people of Curaçao (wishful thinking), reserve the right to hand you over to Interpol. Only wish we could do the same with Pinocchio. How is it that an accused international criminal can hijack the front page of your “newspaper” without any challenge of the facts by simply issuing a threat to sue? Corallo threatened to sue (but never did) Todaysxm.com in St. Maarten in 2010 after they reported about the Italian Tax Inspectorate’s $45 billion dollar claim against his Atlantis/BetPlus based on alleged slot machine fraud that the Italian media pegged closer to $123 billion in dodged taxes.

What’s also missing from any challenge of this statement is that the “honorable Stoelinga” mentioned above is Fons Stoelinga, Ambassador of the Netherlands in Rome who wrote to Schotte/Pinocchio last year that Italian authorities informed him that Corallo was suspected of criminal activity, even though he hadn’t been convicted. As Stoelinga put it, ” In police investigations during the years 1995-1997 into Francesco Corallo, it turned out this person was involved in the drug trade and an important person in the Sicilian mafia. After the arrest of his father, Gaetano Corallo, Francesco Corallo started a tourism centre in St. Maarten via which money-laundering took place. This information was confirmed by the Italian police and by the Italian Intelligence Service.”

This exchange of letters took place a year before Italy issued an arrest warrant for Corallo, citing him for “organised crime, border-crossing crime and fraud”.

Despite this, Pinocchio wanted to appoint him to a “prestigious position” at our Central Bank of Curaçao and St. Maarten, in a none too subtle patronage for Corallo’s financial contributions to Pinocchio’s political campaign. Not only that – Pinocchio also wanted to appoint another person from Corallo’s Atlantis World Group – Chief Financial Officer Rudolf Baetsen to the Presidency of the Board of the Central Bank until the dubious thought of a casino-accountant having a senior role in controlling our money supply collapsed under its farcical weight.

And never mind the dubious and equally farcical clouds surrounding Corallo’s bought passport from Dominica in his feeble attempts to avoid Italian justice by claiming diplomatic immunity. The same ploy didn’t work in 2009 when Russian national Roman Laschin found his diplomatic immunity as Dominica’s Ambassador to Switzerland renounced by Swiss authorities as they charged him with criminal activity. The U.S. did the same with “ambassador” Rudolph King after he was arrested on fraud charges, and denied a visa to Barbadian national Leroy Paris in 2007, questioning why a non-Dominican was named as a “goodwill Ambassador”.

Governments around the world are catching on to Dominican Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit’s practice of selling diplomatic passports to, as the island’s Nature Island News puts it, “international bandits who miraculously slip through what some Ministers of Government have described as a foolproof due diligence drag net.” More savvy governments are simply ignoring the pathetic cries of diplomatic immunity from criminal charges.

It’s time to demand a forensic accounting of all contributions to Schotte’s/Pinocchio’s previous political campaign. And as Steve Jobs would say, “one more thing” – Dominica’s Prime Minister and the island’s newest Senior Counsel will be “distinguished speakers” at an international seminar in Scottsdale Arizona on the 26 and 27 of this month called “Escape From America”, focusing on just how valuable the sale of “second passports” is to hiding wealth from taxation.

Wonder if Pinocchio plans on attending and if he’ll eventually become Dominica’s Ambassador to the suggested UN Mission for Short People With Napoleon Syndrome. At least he can try and plead diplomatic immunity for his crimes in Curaçao.