Former Ecuadorian Foreign Minister Accuses President Moreno Of Being CIA Informant

Former Ecuadorian Foreign Minister Accuses President Moreno of Being CIA Informant

Former Ecuadorian Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino accused on Monday President Lenin Moreno of becoming an informant for the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in order to conceal the fact that he was allegedly hiding corruption money in offshore bank accounts

MONTEVIDEO (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 22nd October, 2019) Former Ecuadorian Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino accused on Monday President Lenin Moreno of becoming an informant for the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in order to conceal the fact that he was allegedly hiding corruption money in offshore bank accounts.

In late March, Ecuador's legislature initiated a corruption probe into Moreno's assets after a dossier of documents that allegedly implicated the president's corruption were leaked. According to the files, Moreno placed $18 million in an offshore company, which was subsequently transferred to various ghost companies in his brother's name. Moreno has denied all claims against him.

"Moreno became a CIA agent due to blackmail ... we are completely sure that Moreno was in Geneva and established a very close relationship with the CIA and the US government because they surely discovered some of his secret accounts that he opened in Panama through his brother to hide corruption money," Patino told Sputnik.

Patino added that Ecuador's Telecommunications Minister, Andres Michelena, who was Moreno's right-hand man, was also a known CIA informant, as evidenced by the fact that he had held on to power despite all of the government changes in recent years.

Moreno served as Special Envoy of the UN Secretary-General for the Disability and Accessibility from 2013 to 2016. In 2017, he succeeded Rafael Correa to Ecuador's presidency. Since becoming president, Moreno has been criticized for his neoliberal reforms and austerity measures, which sparked nationwide protests in early October.