Chapter 23
Fraud Under the Sun
A Case Study of Account Manipulation in the Renewable Energy Sources Industry
Julio Panin was born in the heart of the Salamanca district, one of the most elegant and wealthy areas of Madrid. He was the eldest of four brothers and his father, Aurelio Panin, was a distant descendant of the Marquis of Garcillan, a key figure in Spanish politics at the end of the nineteenth century.
Aurelio Panin spent his life enjoying the substantial fortune accumulated by his ancestors over the decades. The inherited wealth allowed him to set up a series of import and export businesses and delegate their management to associates, some of whom had dubious reputations. In this way, he could dedicate the majority of his time with his two greatest passions: hunting and clandestine poker games that took place in one of the basements in the Casino de Madrid.
Julio Panin had a happy and comfortable early childhood; however, one rainy afternoon in October was engrained in his memory forever because his father, half sobbing, gathered his wife and four sons to tell them of the family's ruin and that he faced going to prison due to the activities of his business partners.
From that moment on, Julio Panin's life changed forever. He was forced to leave his exclusive Jesuit school, one of the oldest and most prestigious in the Spanish capital, to assume the role of head of the family. The family's move to one of the working-class areas on the outskirts ...
