Bolivia's government said on Friday it would sue former executives of US energy company Enron as well as ex-government officials for fraud in relation to a natural gas pipeline to Brazil built in the 1990s.
Among the approximately 40 people to be included in the charges are former President Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada and several US citizens, Energy Minister Andres Soliz told a news conference in La Paz. "The country has suffered one of the biggest frauds in its history," said Soliz, a key figure in the leftist government's May 1 energy nationalisation.
Soliz said the state would seek to recover profits made by Enron and its subsidiaries in Bolivia, accusing the bankrupt US company of having paid bribes and illegally made profits from the natural gas pipeline.
Soliz alleged that Enron used irregular means to make itself the owner of a 40-percent stake in the main Bolivia-Brazil pipeline, which allowed it to charge for transport costs even though it never invested in the project.
He said Enron, which first arrived in Bolivia in 1994, carried out business deals in the country on the basis of a contract signed in Miami under US law but invalid in Bolivia. Sanchez de Lozada kept the dealings under wraps, Soliz said.
It is the latest in a string of accusations made by the government of President Evo Morales against Sanchez de Lozada, who has lived in the United States since his government collapsed amid bloody protests in 2003.