The BTL financials were released on Friday and they blame former CEO Gaspar Aguilar for exercising poor judgement that led to the loss of $6.2 million. As we reported, the Executive Committee of the Board fired Aguilar last week, ending his 25-year career at the company, reportedly without even paying him severance.
Well, Aguilar has written that Board of Management, to say that it's not his fault. 7NEWS has obtained a copy of a letter that Aguilar sent to BTL Chairman Keith Arnold today. In three pages, Aguilar outlines his history at BTL and concludes that when the company lost $6.2 million trying to change money on the parallel market, it was the board's fault as much as it was his.
Aguilar notes that for the past four years, the board authorized him to make huge currency transactions on the parallel market. He says, "I was instructed to (purchase) U.S. dollars on the parallel market by the highest echelons in BTL (in) 2001." It continues: "the parallel market involves significant risks but the company, through my superiors decided to take the risks...therefore they too must share the responsibility for what took place...because over the past four and a half years this assignment...involved hundreds of occasions to exchange tens of millions of dollars, I only dealt with...established individuals and never would I have expected that one of these individuals would not have purchased and delivered the United States dollars...." Aguilar concludes that because he had the Board's go ahead it is, "unfair to lay the responsibility" at his feet.
And while Aguilar self defense is noteworthy enough, what really jumps out is his admission of the scale of the management sanctioned illegal money exchange. It involved, as he said "hundreds of occasions" to_ "exchange tens of millions of dollars." First it shows how much money BTL was changing illegally and how much hard currency was going out in U.S. dollars, a good deal of it to Prosser's and Ashcroft's foreign headquarters processed, it can be assumed, in each case, by BTL's bankers, the Belize Bank.
And while Aguilar had a lot to say to Keith Arnold about his blamelessness in losing the money, he does not say whether he will sue BTL for wrongful termination, even as the company has indicated that it will seek to recover the money through legal channels.
