Associate of Pinochet's Secret Police Named in Panama Papers

As the historic Panama Papers leak continues to unfold prompting countries around the world to investigate all those involved in tax fraud, one more relevant name has popped up into the spotlight this Monday: Alfredo Ovalle Rodriguez, an attorney, entrepreneur, business leader and consultant, who has been very closely linked to former Panamanian President Guillermo Endara, the U.S.-backed anti-leftist Operation Condor and to a high-level Chilean Secret Police official.

Between 2006 and 2008, Ovalle was also the president of the Confederation of Production and Commerce, the largest employers' organization in Chile, and from 2005-2009, the president of the trade association Sociedad Nacional de Mineria, or Sonami, from which he felt forced to resign due to unclear links to the Chilean Secret Police, known as DINA in the Latin American Country.

RELATED:
Historic Panama Papers Cause Global Stir, Prompt Investigations

Ovalle along with his business partner and colleague Raymond Langlois Vicuña created the first of a number of companies in cooperation with the head of the Financial Department of DINA, Olavarria Humberto Aranguren. The DINA was the Chilean secret police in the government of brutal dictator Augusto Pinochet.

The Panama papers show how Ovalle laundered money he generated through investments in Chile.

Some of the companies founded by Ovalle and his two associates were created when Olavarria controlled the financial apparatus of the Pinochet's secret police.

RELATED:
The Man Who Wants to Impeach Rousseff Named in Panama Papers

Ovalle was also the link between Olavarria and Endara, who is said to have informed Ovalle about the value of going to Panama in the 1960s to begin laundering money and evading taxes.

Endara also helped Olavarria and Ovalle create companies tied to Operation Condor, the campaign that rounded up thousands of people who were suspected of having affiliations with radical leftist movements and who was responsible for the car-bomb assassination of a former Chilean Ambassador to the U.S. Orlando Letelier in 1976.

With help of the Panama-based law firm Mossack Fonseca, Ovalle also created the company 'Sierra Leone' in 1987, through which he laundered most of his money.

ANALYSIS:
5 Top Key Points About the Panama Papers, 4-About-Tax-Havens

Until now, Ovalle had taken every precaution to keep his identity as disconnected from the offshore entities as possible, by putting Mossack Fonseca in charge of Sierra Leone's management.

In what is being described as the largest leak in journalistic history, the Panama Papers consist of 11.5 million documents dated beginning in the late 1970s.