Construction contractor José Guilherme, who became known for offering 14 million euros to Ricardo Salgado, died on Wednesday night, according to Jornal Económico.
The discovery of this transfer to an offshore account in Switzerland marked the beginning of the end for Salgado as the leader of Banco Espírito Santo (BES) in 2012.
However, the banker, who led BES for 22 years, justified the amount to the Bank of Portugal with the “legal figure of freedom,” which refers to a gift.
In the Parliamentary Inquiry Commission (CPI) on the BES case in December 2015, Salgado refused to speak in detail about the contractor’s “personal” gift, emphasizing that the case was under judicial secrecy.
According to Jornal Económico, citing an EY audit, the contractor was one of Novobanco’s major debtors and “admitted that when BES was subject to a resolution measure by the Bank of Portugal in 2014, he owed ‘about 121 million euros’ to the bank.”
Benfica mourns the death of José Guilherme, a reference in the construction of Luz Stadium
The businessman and construction contractor died on Thursday at the age of 78.
