WILLEMSTAD - The preferred bidder Caribbean Petroleum Refinery (CPR) is said to have falsified dozens of financial documents for the takeover of the Curaçao Isla refinery.
The Netherlands Forensic Investigation Agency (NFO) confirmed the forged documents after a second forensic investigation. Earlier there were suspicions of forgery from the headhunting team of Forensic Service Caribbean in Curacao. Forensic Technology International (FTI) also expressed concern.
The concern is said to have arisen after a "comfort letter". This was sent in October about a support of about $ 5.5 billion from the London financial banking group HSBC. According to sources, the letter had several deviating features. HSBC later stated that the letter would not have come from the group. It was then decided to have a large part of the CPR files thoroughly investigated. The NFO has now intercepted dozens of forged documents.
The forged documents were intended to show that the company has the required capital, but doubts quickly arose. Now that the results of the forensic investigation are in, the team of specialists will soon meet with the legal and general economic adviser.
CPR has meanwhile announced that it will be working with another financial partner. In addition, the law firm Spigt Dutch Caribbean would have drawn up a legal document on behalf of CPR. This should show that the company itself would also have conducted research into the backgrounds of the so-called 'equity partners' of CPR.
The management of the public limited company Refineria di Korsou (RdK) has not yet commented.