First ruling in the BPA case: 18 convicted, 84 years in prison, and €66 million in fines

BarcelonaSentences of up to seven years in prison for 18 former executives and employees of Banca Privada de Andorra (BPA) for money laundering. This is the first major sentence stemming from the BPA case, seven and a half years after the oral hearing began in the case, which erupted in 2015 when the then third-largest Andorran banking institution was accused by the United States of money laundering and subsequently taken over by the Andorran government. The sentence relates to the operations of a single bank client, Chinese businessman Gao Ping, between 2008 and 2011.

This first sentence by the Andorran Court of First Instances is not final because it may still be appealed to the criminal division of the Superior Court. Specifically, 24 BPA employees are accused of facilitating the laundering and shipment to China of €70 million for the Chinese mafia led by Gao Ping. So far, the ruling has convicted eighteen people and acquitted six, in a text that spans more than 6,180 pages. Of those convicted, five have been sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment, thirteen to provisional imprisonment, which will prevent them from entering the Comella prison, and six have also been acquitted. The case is also ongoing in Spain, where it is awaiting trial under the name of the Emperador case.

Specifically, the sentences handed down by the court range from seven to five years of fixed-term imprisonment, and from five to three years and six months of suspended imprisonment, while the fines vary between €30 million and €15,000, with additional penalties of disqualification or a term of years from practicing law, and expulsion from the Principality for some of the foreign defendants for a period of ten years.

The highest sentence was handed down to the entity's former CEO, Joan Pau Miquel, who received a seven-year sentence and a €30 million fine. The highest sentence was handed down to the entity's former deputy director, Santiago Rosselló, who received six years in prison and a fine. The sentences are lower than those sought by the prosecution, which were eight years in prison and a €100 million fine, and eight years and €70 million, respectively. The Andorran Penal Code punishes the qualified crime of money laundering with prison sentences of between three and eight years, and a fine that can reach three times the value of the money laundered. Their defense attorneys will now be able to appeal to the High Court.

10 years since the outbreak of the case

Following the US investigation, the bank's access to international markets was cut off and the government of the Principality, then headed by Antoni Martí, decided to intervene the entity in March 2015 through the Andorran National Institute of Finance (INAF). This body dismissed BPA's entire board of directors and some executives, and then appointed three new provisional joint administrators. The board was made up of the brothers Higini and Ramon Cierco—then owners of the bank—Joan Pau Miquel, Frederic Borràs, Ricard Climent, Bonaventura Riberaygua, and Rosa Castellón. All of this sparked a kind of playpen, with almost 30,000 clients unable to withdraw more than 2,500 euros per week.

A year later, the consultancy firm PWC, in charge of carrying out the independent review of the entity, already confirmed that A total of 923 clients of Banca Privada de Andorra (BPA) used their relationship with this entity to launder money., equivalent to 3% of the entity's total clients, but representing 19% of the total BPA volume, with approximately €1 billion in business volume. Three months after the intervention, the Andorran government decided to split BPA in two: one bad bank with toxic assets and one good bank newly created to acquire the healthy assets, which led to the birth of Vall Banc. The first was acquired by American fund JC Flowers, and the second, in 2021, was acquired by Crèdit Andorrà.