Pinochet suspected of stashing gold

FORMER Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet may have stashed millions of dollars in gold in a Hong Kong bank.

Officials are seeking to freeze any fortune while it is investigated.

Local media put the total amount allegedly deposited at the HSBC bank in Hong Kong at some $160 million (€126m).

But Pinochet’s attorney denied the reports.

“The only gold General Pinochet owns is his wedding ring,” said Pablo Rodriguez, suggesting the disclosure by the government was a “smoke screen” to distract attention from an ongoing probe of alleged corruption at the government’s sports promotion office.

Pinochet’s wife, Lucia Hiriart, called the report “a mean action aimed at deceiving people.”

She said that while she visited Hong Kong twice with Pinochet, “that doesn’t mean we move around carrying tonnes of gold.”

The government of President Michelle Bachelet, who was tortured at a detention centre during Pinochet’s 1973-1990 dictatorship, said it was investigating the reports.

Foreign minister Alejandro Foxley said: “We received information through one of our diplomatic missions abroad several days ago.”

The council said it was seeking to have the accounts allegedly linked to Pinochet frozen “in order to prevent the eventual sale of what may exist in the deposit.”

The discovery was part of an investigation into Pinochet’s fortune abroad that began in 2004 after a US Senate investigative committee disclosed that the 90-year-old former ruler held millions of dollars at Riggs Bank in Washington.

Since then, Pinochet’s fortune at several foreign banks had been estimated at $28 million (€22m). He allegedly used false passports to open some of the accounts.