July 10, 2007 (LPAC)--Spain's British Crown-run Santander Bank intends to launch a private equity fund next month totalling $20 billion in capital, to invest in infrastructure projects in Ibero-America, principally, if not entirely in Brazil, the bank's Americas Division Director General, Francisco Luzon, told Brazilian journalists during the July 4-5 VI Santander-Latin America Conference. While holding out this promise of a carrot to Brazil, Luzon otherwise spent the conference busily attacking the Kirchner government in Argentina. (See "LaRouche to Santander Bank: Take Your Hand Out of Your Pocket!")

Santander Bank thus stands exposed as doing exactly what Lyndon LaRouche charged they are doing: using their position inside Brazil to try and stop South America's Bank of the South project. The purpose of the Bank of the South is precisely to mobilize sovereign government financing for the gigantic infrastructure needs of South America, free from the clutches of private looters.

Brazil's InvestNews reported on July 5 that Luzon bragged that Santander is out to minimally double its presence in Brazil over the next four to five years, and up their control even more, if they can pick up Brazil's third-largest private bank, Real, with a successful take-over of Real's owner, Holland's ABN Amro bank.