Please find attached some documents which provide information related to the bankruptcy of the Refisa financial firm. Only minor references to the Reincorsa firm could be found among the sources currently available to the IRBDC.

According to one of the documents, Peruvian police had called on Interpol to help track down the officials of the Refisa bank (Xinhua 8 July 1990). The source adds that the police were looking for the bank's principals, who reportedly "lured some 20,000 Peruvians into depositing their savings for high interest rates, then apparently fled with 100 million dollars" (Ibid.).

One of the attachments, published in a Peruvian weekly newsmagazine, contains two articles related to the Refisa and Reincorsa cases (Caretas 23 Jul. 1990). One of the articles, "Caso Refisa: Petrocoima," reports on the attempted bribery of a reporter offered by an alleged Reincorsa partner in exchange for potentially damaging information which the magazine's reporter claimed to have ("Petrocoima" is a word that does not actually exist in Spanish: it combines the word "coima," which is Peruvian slang for bribe, and the prefix "petro," which in this case alludes to the Peruvian state oil company Petroperú) (Ibid., 40-42). The magazine had contacted the attorney general's office (Ministerio Público or Fiscalía), which mounted an operation to capture those attempting to bribe the reporter (Ibid., 43, 48). The members of the attorney's office detained an employee of Daniel Nuñez, an official at Petroperú who had been named by Manuel Zarzar as his partner in the financial firm Reincorsa, reportedly based in Montreal (Ibid., 40, 43, 48). The article includes pictures of the brothers Manuel and Alfonso Zarzar, Daniel Nuñez and the employee reportedly involved in the bribery attempt. The caption beside the photographs of the Zarzar brothers states that they were board members of Refisa and had been accused of defrauding the Banking and Insurance Superintendency (Superintendencia de Banca y Seguros, SBS) and bank customers who put their savings in that bank (Ibid., 42).

The following issue of Caretas (30 July 1990) published two letters, one by Daniel Nuñez and the other by a journalist who initially contacted the magazine's reporter to inquire about information that the latter claimed to have. In one of the letters, Daniel Nuñez denies involvement in the alleged bribery attempt and states he publicly denied any link with fraudulent activities by the Zarzar brothers and their companies (Caretas
30 July 1990, 2). The magazine adds that the lawyer representing the defrauded depositors had pressed charges against Nuñez and the person who reportedly offered a bribe, for an offense against the administration of justice (delito contra la administración de justicia, according to the source) (Ibid.). The journalist who initially contacted the magazine's reporter clarifies in his letter that he only interceded by phone as a favour to a friend who worked in Petroperú (Ibid., 2-3). The magazine does not refute the contents of either letter.

Another article published in Caretas refers to a televised debate between the Minister of Economics and the Superintendent of Banking and Insurance (Caretas 23 July 1990, 42-43). The article mentions the existence of approximately 120 financial institutions in Peru similar to Refisa, part of what is called banca paralela (which could be translated to "parallel banking system"). The article suggests that the parallel banking system operated illegally, yet it appealed to many because of the higher interests it provided for savings and the avoidance of taxes levied, for example, on the chequing accounts of the legal or "formal" banking system (Ibid.). The source states that the SBS had pressed charges against several financial firms of the parallel banking system since 1988 for operating illegally, although the attorney general's office had dismissed all charges. The attorney's office reportedly decided to take action only after the notorious Refisa fraud became apparent (Ibid.).

Also attached, please find a brief report published by the Lima Times of 13 July 1990. According to this report, the name Refisa stands for Representaciones Financieras S. A. ("S. A." stands for Sociedad Anónima, a term that defines the legal setting of a firm). The Lima Times report states that lawsuits against the board of directors of Refisa had been "followed by a court order to investigate three state attorneys suspected of delaying the court cases" (Lima Times 13 July 1990, 5). The source adds:
Refisa directors are accused of fraud, against 10,000 shareholders who invested their savings estimated at a total of [US]$100mn and have not been able to get their money back. The investors many of them retired armed forces officers and civil servants put their inti [Peruvian currency at the time the report was published; today it is the Nuevo Sol] and dollar savings into Refisa for interest rates of up to 19% every two months on $10,000, or up to 70% on some inti savings.
The first law suits presented by investors were shelved or delayed in the courts for over a month before panic spread. Since then, some of the directors have fled the country and the Refisa offices have been virtually dismantled (Lima Times 13 July 1990, 5).

According to a researcher of the Andean Commission of Jurists, the Refisa case was a notorious financial scandal involving the Zarzar brothers, who apparently defaulted the bank and fled the country (24 Apr. 1992). The source added that it has often been speculated in Peru that some of the parallel banking system's firms may be or may have been fronts for laundering drug-trafficking profits, which could account for the high interests some of them paid for deposits, although this may not have been the case of Refisa (Ibid.).

Andean Commission of Jurists. 24 April 1992. Telephone Interview with Researcher.

Caretas [Lima]. 23 July 1990. "Caso Refisa: Petrocoima" and "Fugas y Peleas."

_____. 30 July 1990. "Nos Escriben... y Contestamos: Refisa y Soborno."

Lima Times [Lima]. 13 July 1990. "Refisa Fraud Charges."

The Xinhua General Overseas News Service. 8 July 1990. "Latin American News Briefs." (NEXIS)

Caretas [Lima]. 23 July 1990. "Caso Refisa: Petrocoima" and "Fugas y Peleas."

_____. 30 July 1990. "Nos Escriben... y Contestamos: Refisa y Soborno."

Lima Times [Lima]. 13 July 1990. "Refisa Fraud Charges."

The Xinhua General Overseas News Service. 8 July 1990. "Latin American News Briefs." (NEXIS)