OneHourAhead

Rob Parsons, residing in A Comfortable Place, beat me to it but there is a nice story in The Economist this week about how Belize Bank is holding onto $10 Million that the Belizean Government thinks belongs to the people of Belize, a gift from the Hugo Chavez, the Venezuelan president, to build housing and help alleviate poverty in poverty-stricken Belize.

Belize Bank is controlled by BB Holdings Ltd, whose Chairman is the one and only Lord Ashcroft, who is of course, the Deputy Chairman of our lovely Conservative Party. He is, as well, the single biggest donor to the Tory party, bankrolling a considerable amount of their recent resurgence.

So the Tories get their money from Ashcroft, Ashcroft gets some of his money from BB Holdings, BB Holdings gets its money from the Belize Bank, and the Belize bank gets some of its money from Venezuela.  So does Hugo fund Dave then?  And is this money diverted from the Belizean poor to Conservative Party?

Unfortunately, its not quite that shadowy, although it would make for a good story.  Seems the Belizean government might owe the bank some money so it has decided to hold onto to this lot until the issue is resolved.

Still, the article brings up the nice fact, no doubt long forgotten, that a condition of Ashcroft’s Peership(?) was that he become a permanent UK residence, a requirement that the magazine is unsure he has fulfilled, therefore having, as they put it “representation without taxation”.

I also found this article in the Guardian from a few years ago, detailing the DEA’s investigation’s into the use of the Belizean banking system to launder drug money. Obviously, Mikey isn’t involved in this but it seems that the system he used his influence to set up in Belize might well be used for more nefarious purposes - if you can get more nefarious than funding the Tories.