Brazil court freezes Neymar assets worth $47M
SAO PAULO, Brazil (AFP) — A Brazilian court on Friday froze $47 million in assets belonging to football superstar Neymar over tax evasion allegations surrounding the Barcelona striker.
Judge Carlos Muta wrote in a ruling that Neymar — who is facing fraud claims in a separate case in Spain — had been subjected to a “special fine” concerning alleged unpaid taxes between 2011 and 2013.
“I confirm that a special fine of 150 per cent was applied… requiring payment of 188,820,129,25 reals ($47.3 million), of which 63,591,796 relate to income tax and the rest to fines and interest, with regard to events that took place in the calendar years from 2011 to 2013,” Muta wrote.
The court ruling is another bodyblow to the reputation of Neymar, the figurehead of Brazil’s national team.
The 23-year-old is already battling fraud allegations in Spain stemming from the financial arrangements surrounding his move from Santos to Barcelona in 2013.
In June, Spain’s National Court admitted a lawsuit alleging “corruption and swindling” by Neymar, his father and Santos. The case has been brought by a Brazilian investment fund, DIS, which owned part of the transfer rights for the player when he was at Santos.
Antiguan court building evacuated following bomb scare
ST JOHN’S, Antigua (CMC) – Workers at the High Court and government officers were forced to evacuate their buildings on Friday after a man claimed he had placed explosive devices there.
Police Commissioner Wendell Robinson told the Caribbean Media Corporation (CMC) that the man had phoned in to say that explosive dives had been planted at the building on the eastern end of the capital city.
The building is in close proximity to those that houses the Office of the Prime Minister and the Ministries of Finance and Tourism.
Lawyers, court staff and laymen gathered outside as police swept the buildings for any explosive device and the all clear was given an hour later. At the time of the hoax, the courts were hearing two criminal and two civil matters.
Doctor implicated in baby fraud case
KINGSTON, Jamaica – A medical doctor is to face the court for he allegedly attempted to register a woman’s newborn baby as the offspring of another couple.
The police on Wednesday arrested and charged 54-year-old Shaun Wynter of Millsborough Close in Kingston with forgery and conspiracy to defraud.
According to police reports, a woman gave birth to a child last year and consented to giving the newborn to a couple she felt could provide better care for the child.
The couple then reportedly submitted documents to have the child falsely registered as being their birth child. The documents stated that the child was born during a home delivery under Wynter’s supervision.
However, checks made revealed that the child had already been registered to the birth mother. The matter was reported to the Fraud Squad, an investigation launched and Wynter arrested and charged.
He is scheduled to appear in the Corporate Area Resident Magistrate’s Court Wednesday, October 7.
Mexico to create new prosecutor for missing student case
[BBC] – Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto has announced the creation of a special team to look into the case of the disappearance of 43 students last year.
He was speaking after meeting relatives of the 43 ahead of the first anniversary of the tragedy on Saturday. He said a special investigative team and prosecutor would handle the case.
The families want an international commission of experts to take over. Its report says the government investigation is fundamentally flawed. Among the families’ demands is that the government should look into the possible role of the army in the disappearance of the students.
They also want an investigation into those responsible for the initial enquiry, which they believe was intended to mislead them. The students disappeared on 26 September, 2014, in the city of Iguala in Guerrero state.
They had gone there to gather for a commemoration in Mexico city. The federal government has said local police from Iguala and the nearby town of Cocula had detained the students and turned them over to the local drug gang, which then allegedly killed them and burnt the remains.
But a team of international experts sent by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights spent six months reviewing the government’s investigation and found a number of flaws.
It concluded the bodies of 43 students could not have been burned at the rubbish dump in Cocula as the government maintained. The government says it has identified two of the students from the burned remains recovered from the rubbish dump.
