In a room in the National Intelligence Service (SIN is the Spanish acronym) during the last years of the last century, the fate of many Peruvian prominent public personalities was sealed and stamped.

Congressmen, State Ministers and Vice-Ministers, Prosecutors and Judges, Provincial and District Mayors, Peruvian and foreign businessmen, journalists and owners of the written, radio and television broadcasting media, show business celebrities and members of the Armed Forces visited that room in search of favor, in one of the saddest moral tragedies of our nation’s history.

No one who boasted having any power would avoid visiting the National Intelligence Service to negotiate more power or money. Lima’s often frivolous elites were split among visitors to the “little SIN room” and those who were denied the privilege.

All sorts of negotiations took place there. From money for money’s sake, to tailor made court decisions, through the “death” of bothersome political rivals and transactions to kill financial competitors who threatened the status quo. SIN’s visitors were not only showbiz celebrities or irrelevant beings seeking the crumbs of power, but also the figureheads of old all mighty economic lobbies for whom Vladimiro Montesinos himself was only a passing bird.

The “Assault on the Banco Nuevo Mundo” is not a novel. There is no room for fiction here. This is the narrative and evidence of the most gruesome story of financial dispossession and persecution in Peru’s financial history by government officials and politicians orchestrated by powerful economic and religious groups.

The following pages do not show anything that we do not already know. We do not show any new proof or evidence. Nothing of what you will read here is a secret. On the contrary, all the documents are in the public domain and some are even older than a decade. None is more important than another, because they are all proof of the events. The representations, reports, audits, letters, claims and all the information shown are just more evidence, although the events we narrate here may seem implausible.

Why?

Because it seems improbable that a bank, which for 8 years was managed following strict criteria of efficiency and growth and was ranked as the sixth largest in Peru’s banking system, earning satisfactory reports even from the Banks, Insurance Companies and Pension and Management Corporations Superintendency (SBS is the Spanish acronym) would suddenly fall into a stage of illiquidity.

Because it seems inconceivable that the State, aware of a suspicious campaign of electronic mails seeking to scare savers and in the midst of a financial and political crisis, rather than strengthening our or any organization, would instead order to withdraw, in a matter of just few hours, tens of millions of dollars belonging to government organizations from the Bank’s deposit accounts, without further explanation.

Because Banco Nuevo Mundo was about to acquire another local bank, Banco Financiero, an acquisition supported by Bank of America, from the United States, which was proof not only of its strength, but also of its decision to grow.

Because Apoyo y Asociados Internacionales SAC and Class Asociados, two renowned risk rating agencies, had prepared reports demonstrating Banco Nuevo Mundo’s robust financial condition, to the extent the National Corporations and Securities Supervising Commission (CONASEV is the Spanish acronym) had authorized it to issue A and A+ bonds and to list it in the Lima Stock Exchange.

Because after the intervention happened, an 800 million dollars worth portfolio was undervalued, and given a negative 200 million dollar transfer value, based on arbitrary criteria to discredit the value of the loans’ collateral, without having ever performed an appropriate assessment.

Because suddenly the Bank liquidation was ordered, without calling a creditor’s meeting, assessing the assets’ value and infringing every code and law governing financial companies and organizations.

Because after the liquidation and the appointment of two liquidators, a subsidiary of Banco de Crédito and Interbank, and after they concluded their job, all the information pertaining to the liquidation process was hidden, despite requests for disclosure even by the courts, and infringing the access to information law. This information is refused until now.

Because a “vladivideo” from the end of 1999 shows Carlos Alberto Boloña Behr, then Minister of Finance, declaring word for word: “small banks should merge as soon as possible and they should be acquired, so our coffers will be filled and they will not give us more trouble,” a proof of the maneuver orchestrated in the infamous “little SIN room” against our financial system organization.

Because in 2001 and 2004, the Congressional Financial Crimes, Economy and Oversight committees pointed to “serious irregularities in the Banco Nuevo Mundo intervention,” despite which the Executive Branch did absolutely nothing to clarify and repair the huge damage caused.

Because President Alan García said in August 2006 that if the Supreme Court ordered paying an indemnification for the events, the State would go bankrupt. Juan José Marthans León, then Superintendent for Banking and Insurance, said likewise. Both, through their statements and initiatives, infringed the rule of law, by encouraging the interference amongst powers of the State and backing illegal government initiatives.

It was not just the bank and private property that were hurt, but also the attack was escalated to harm a family that had been an example of hard work, turning them into pariahs.

What happened in the last decade is serious. Facts show there was abuse and the intent to appropriate a bank property through the demolition of another greater property, a moral patrimony.

The Jewish community to which we used to belong expelled us after a proceeding led by a tribunal never sought the truth and, quite the contrary, was set-up without the authority to decide, following a shameful order. Instructions had been devised by influential members of the community who were also large bank borrowers. The process was so unfair and illegitimate that it was soon invalidated by a rabbinic court from Israel, with the written backing of Mordechai Tzemach Eliyahu, Israel’s Great Rabbi and highest Sephardic religious authority from Israel. Israel’s rabbis punished the local rabbis for their foolish acts.

Excommunication was followed by violence against members of our family. My nieces and nephews had to leave their school because of the rarified atmosphere that emerged. My father, the Bank’s founder, a respected and respectable man until he turned 85, a patriarch of his family and owner of our investments in Peru, was impeded from being buried following Jewish rituals when he died at 93.

The Levy family has been morally questioned for more than a decade. We have suffered and will continue to suffer an unfair social and religious ostracism.

And if that were not enough, a large 200 hectare property on Lima’s Costa Verde beach from, bought by my father’s company through a public all for tender from the Peruvian government for 5 million dollars in cash in 1997 and developed after receiving all required permits and authorization, was then illegally declared as intangible. By way of illustration of the damaged cause, that property is worth today between 200 and 400 dollars per square meter. President Alan García surprisingly declared that had been the sight of fighting during the Pacific war.

Perhaps the President thought our property was located on the historical “Morro Solar”, now a telecommunications antenna farm, but his single statement prevented that property from being used, disposed or developed, despite having been legitimately purchased.

The National Institute of Culture (INC its Spanish acronym) issued over 35 archeological non-objection certificates (CIRA as in Spanish) and Peruvian Army historians certifying this property had never been battle ground of any wars whatsoever.

The opinion of specialists and knowledgeable experts appointing to the banality of such arguments was of little avail because, when the Peruvian President talks, everybody else shut up and follows orders.

Curiously, while all countries make efforts to lure foreign capital or local investments, our country scares them away, punishes and attacks those who believe in the rule of law.

In the last ten years, first my family’s bank was taken away from us. And now, my father and my sister Renée Rose Levy’s property is stolen. This led to me to write this book, because such outrage cannot be tolerated.

This book is the testimony of an improbable journey. Never, however, despite all that happened, did we stop having faith. Our father taught to believe in truth and always to expect justice will be done. Ten years have passed and we still stand firm.

If each part is part of the crime, seeing the whole is being witness to that crime. Because as we step back from the individual events and look at the whole, when we step back to look at the entire scene, when we link the traces time cannot erase, when the outlook raises hackles, shakes us and, at times, hurts.

Arbitrariness and abuse sooner or later expose human beings. Abuse always outrages. Theft, as an addition, comes from authority and power, disturbs.

The infamous little SIN room was not, in all truth, where this pernicious and destructive operation started. The powers that be pulled behind the scenes the strings of true power. They have to be uncovered because that is a moral duty.

This book narrates an episode in our country’s that should have never happened, because it depicts us not as a good country but rather it debases and degrades us.

Authorities and politicians must understand the State is permanent. But governments and themselves are temporary. But this book is also a new bet and for Peru because we were not defeated, nor were we destroyed, and because truth and justice shall prevail.

Jacques Levy Calvo
Lima, August 2011