El Caribe newspaper reports that the legal advisor to the President, Guido G?mez Mazara, violated the norms that limit him to offering his services exclusively to the Executive Branch and not directly to any third parties. G?mez Mazara underwrote a letter to Luis Alvarez Renta regarding two consultations as to Interduty Free, a duty-free goods company under Alvarez Renta at the time. The consultations occurred weeks before the Baninter scandal came into the open. In his address to the nation on 13 May, Central Bank Governor Malkum said that preliminary findings on the Baninter debacle showed that overdrafts and loans totaling RD$3.83 billion had been erased from the company Bank Invest, presided over and managed by Luis Alvarez Renta.
El Caribe points out that on 25 July 2002, Guido G?mez Mazara had responded directly to Interduty Free Dominicana, S.A., regarding a consultation on the exemption of duties, taxes and other fiscal charges that duty free companies are eligible for. His reply to Alvarez Renta at the time was that the duty-free zones located at international airports were exempt from the taxes that the central revenue agency was requesting. The newspaper points out that G?mez Mazara took merely 10 days to respond to the inquiry made by Interduty regarding its tax status.