Germán Efromovich (born 1950) is a

Bolivia Bolivia, officially the Plurinational State of Bolivia, is a landlocked country located in central South America. The country features diverse geography, including vast Amazonian plains, tropical lowlands, mountains, the Gran Chaco Province, w ...

n-born entrepreneur with

multiple citizenship Multiple citizenship (or multiple nationality) is a person's legal status in which a person is at the same time recognized by more than one sovereign state, country under its nationality law, nationality and citizenship law as a national or cit ...

Brazil Brazil, officially the Federative Republic of Brazil, is the largest country in South America. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, fifth-largest country by area and the List of countries and dependencies by population ...

ian,

Colombia Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country primarily located in South America with Insular region of Colombia, insular regions in North America. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Caribbean Sea to the north, Venezuel ...

n, and Polish. He was born into a family of Polish

Jews Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...

.Paweł Rożyński: Całkiem fajny kraj
at '' Rzeczpospolita'', 2 February 2013. His net worth is estimated to be $1 billion.

Biography

Efromovich was born in

La Paz La Paz, officially Nuestra Señora de La Paz (Aymara language, Aymara: Chuqi Yapu ), is the seat of government of the Bolivia, Plurinational State of Bolivia. With 755,732 residents as of 2024, La Paz is the List of Bolivian cities by populati ...

, but his family is originally from Poland. Looking for a new home after

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, his parents left Poland for

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a considerably smaller portion in the Northern Hemisphere. It can also be described as the southern Subregion#Americas, subregion o ...

, first to

, where he was born, and later to

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in western South America. It is the southernmost country in the world and the closest to Antarctica, stretching along a narrow strip of land between the Andes, Andes Mountains and the Paci ...

, where Germán Efromovich was raised from 1955 in

Arica Arica ( ; ) is a commune and a port city with a population of 222,619 in the Arica Province of northern Chile's Arica y Parinacota Region. It is Chile's northernmost city, being located only south of the border with Peru. The city is the ca ...

and then from 1964 in

São Paulo São Paulo (; ; Portuguese for 'Paul the Apostle, Saint Paul') is the capital of the São Paulo (state), state of São Paulo, as well as the List of cities in Brazil by population, most populous city in Brazil, the List of largest cities in the ...

, Brazil. After schooling, he earned a degree in Mechanical Engineering from FEI University in Brazil. His career includes selling

encyclopedia An encyclopedia is a reference work or compendium providing summaries of knowledge, either general or special, in a particular field or discipline. Encyclopedias are divided into article (publishing), articles or entries that are arranged Alp ...

s, dubbing Mexican movies into Portuguese and the ownership of a school in

São Bernardo do Campo São Bernardo do Campo () is a Brazilian Municipalities of Brazil, municipality in the state of São Paulo. It is part of the Metropolitan Region of São Paulo. The population is 810,729 (2022 census) in an area of . According to 2021 data from ...

, where in the 1980s he taught a union leader named

Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (; born Luiz Inácio da Silva; 27 October 1945), known Mononym, mononymously as Lula, is a Brazilian politician, trade unionist and former metalworker who has served as the 39th president of Brazil since 2023. A mem ...

, who later became

President of Brazil The president of Brazil (), officially the president of the Federative Republic of Brazil () or simply the ''President of the Republic'', is the head of state and head of government of Brazil. The president leads the executive branch of the ...

. The oil sector laid the groundwork for what would become Synergy Group. To build his oil and

aviation Aviation includes the activities surrounding mechanical flight and the aircraft industry. ''Aircraft'' include fixed-wing and rotary-wing types, morphable wings, wing-less lifting bodies, as well as lighter-than-air aircraft such as h ...

empire Efromovich bought

Avianca Avianca S.A. (acronym in Spanish for ''Aerovias de Colombia S.A.'', "Airways of Colombia", and stylized as avianca since October 2023) is the largest airline in Colombia. It has been the flag carrier of Colombia since December 5, 1919, when it ...

, Colombia's national airline, in 2004, for US$64m, plus the assumption of US$220 million in debt and leasing liabilities. Initially performing only

nondestructive testing Nondestructive testing (NDT) is any of a wide group of analysis techniques used in science and technology industry to evaluate the properties of a material, component or system without causing damage. The terms nondestructive examination (NDE), n ...

for the Brazilian-government-run oil company,

Petrobras Petróleo Brasileiro S.A., better known by and Trade name, trading as the portmanteau Petrobras (), is a Brazilian state-owned enterprise, majority state-owned multinational corporation in the petroleum industry headquartered in Rio de Janeiro. ...

, Efromovich developed more business to the point of building and

leasing A lease is a contractual arrangement calling for the user (referred to as the ''lessee'') to pay the owner (referred to as the ''lessor'') for the use of an asset. Property, buildings and vehicles are common assets that are leased. Industrial ...

oil rig An oil rig is any kind of apparatus constructed for oil drilling. Kinds of oil rig include: * Drilling rig A drilling rig is an integrated system that Drilling, drills wells, such as oil or water wells, or holes for piling and other construc ...

s. His other businesses include power plants,

shipyards A shipyard, also called a dockyard or boatyard, is a place where ships are built and repaired. These can be yachts, military vessels, cruise liners or other cargo or passenger ships. Compared to shipyards, which are sometimes more involved ...

and products for the medical industry. After the sinking of one of these oil rigs in the

South Atlantic The Atlantic Ocean is the second largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, with an area of about . It covers approximately 17% of Earth's surface and about 24% of its water surface area. During the Age of Discovery, it was known for ...

, off the Brazilian coast, legal disputes with insurance companies and with

, Germán Efromovich began investing in

. This was by pure chance, because a customer, who could not pay cash in a business deal, gave him two of his aircraft. This was the beginning of an

air taxi An air taxi is a small commercial aircraft that makes short flights on demand. History The concept of air taxis existed as early as the 1910s. This concept goes back as early as 1917 with Glenn Curtiss’ prototype, the auto-plane. Furthermor ...

company. The Efromovich brothers called it OceanAir and started to transport staff between the oil exploration site in

Macaé Macaé () is a municipality located in the Brazilian state of Rio de Janeiro, 180 km northeast of the state capital. It is the birthplace of the 13th president of Brazil, Washington Luís. Geography Location Macaé is generally consider ...

and

Rio de Janeiro Rio de Janeiro, or simply Rio, is the capital of the Rio de Janeiro (state), state of Rio de Janeiro. It is the List of cities in Brazil by population, second-most-populous city in Brazil (after São Paulo) and the Largest cities in the America ...

. OceanAir, 2010 renamed Avianca Brazil, was launched in 1998 and six years later he purchased the

n legacy airline

from Julio Mario Santo Domingo. As a result of his major investments in Colombia's economic and social development, Efromovich was officially made an honorary Colombian

citizen Citizenship is a membership and allegiance to a sovereign state. Though citizenship is often conflated with nationality in today's English-speaking world, international law does not usually use the term ''citizenship'' to refer to nationality ...

in 2005 by the Colombian government. He has control or shares in his own Synergy Group, based in

, which in 1998 was offering maintenance services for oil operations in Brazil. In late 2004, Efromovich's company agreed to buy a controlling stake in Avianca, which at the time was under the protection of Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings. Synergy Group subsequently acquired the remainder of Avianca in 2005. In February 2010,

and TACA merged to AviancaTaca. The TACA Group encompassed TACA Airlines and their participation in Lacsa,

Aviateca Aviateca S.A. branded Avianca Guatemala is a regional airline headquartered in Guatemala City that serves as the flag carrier of Guatemala. Aviateca was under government ownership and remained so until 1989 when it joined the Grupo TACA alliance ...

Sansa Airlines SANSA (''Servicios Aéreos Nacionales S.A.'') is a regional airline based in San José, Costa Rica. It operates scheduled passenger services as part of the former TACA Regional system, and was a subsidiary of Avianca Holdings. Its main hub is Jua ...

, La Costeña, Aeroperlas and Isleña Airlines. Avianca includes: Avianca, Tampa Cargo and the recently incorporated AeroGal from Ecuador. The combined Avianca and Taca is now the second-largest airline in the region in terms of revenue, behind Chilean-Brazilian's

LATAM Airlines Group LATAM Airlines Group S.A. is a Chile, Chilean multinational airline holding company headquartered in Santiago, Santiago, Chile. It is considered the largest airline company in Latin America with subsidiaries in Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Par ...

. All these airlines are controlled by Synergy Aerospace Corp. based in Bogota, a subsidiarity of Synergy Group. Efromovich also has shares in Wayraperú, Avianca Ecuador and OceanAir, which was later renamed Avianca Brasil. On November 5, 2017, the

Paradise Papers The Paradise Papers are a set of over 13.4 million confidential electronic documents relating to offshore investments that were leaked to the German reporters Frederik Obermaier and Bastian Obermayer, from the newspaper'' Süddeutsche Z ...

, a set of confidential

electronic document An electronic document is a document that can be sent in non-physical means, such as telex, email, and the internet. Originally, any computer data were considered as something internal—the final data output was always on paper. However, the ...

s relating to

offshore investment Offshore investment is the keeping of money in a jurisdiction other than one's country of residence. Offshore jurisdictions are used to pay less tax in many countries by large and small-scale investors. Poorly regulated offshore domiciles have ser ...

, revealed that Efromovich and Synergy Group's subsidiary Avianca Holdings were linked to an offshore conglomerate used for the aerocommercial holding business with ramifications in Bermuda, Panama and Cyprus. Efromovich used a Panamanian offshore that hid more than 20 firms located in tax havens. On August 19, 2020, Efromovich and his brother José were arrested in

as a part of

Operation Car Wash Operation Car Wash (, ) was a landmark anti-corruption probe in Brazil.Kurtenbach, S., & Nolte, D. (2017). Latin America's Fight against Corruption: The End of Impunity. GIGA Focus Lateinamerika, (03). Beginning in March 2014 as the investiga ...

, and as a result of their involvement in a corruption scheme that involved paying bribes of about R$40 million between 2009 and 2013 to

and Transpetro high executives so as to win bids to build

Panamax Panamax and New Panamax (or Neopanamax) are terms for the size limits for ships traveling through the Panama Canal. The limits and requirements are published by the Panama Canal Authority (ACP) in a publication titled "Vessel Requirements". ...

ships for the company in the Efremovichs' Estaleiro Ilha (Eisa) shipyard. Both arrests were preemptive, and the brothers were put under house arrest in the face of the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

. Efromovich has insisted on his innocence. A Brazilian tribunal considered that the accusations are proper, and decided to start a trial in September 2020. The arrest order on both brothers was lifted on November 11, 2020, in response to a ''

habeas corpus ''Habeas corpus'' (; from Medieval Latin, ) is a legal procedure invoking the jurisdiction of a court to review the unlawful detention or imprisonment of an individual, and request the individual's custodian (usually a prison official) to ...

'' claim by their defense, although the

injunction An injunction is an equitable remedy in the form of a special court order compelling a party to do or refrain from doing certain acts. It was developed by the English courts of equity but its origins go back to Roman law and the equitable rem ...

and preemptive measures are being held in place, which forbids them from leaving the country, changing their residence without informing the authorities, moving any banking account outside the country, or making any management or financial decision in the companies they are stockholders of. They also must surrender their passports, informing the judge of their current addresses and committing to attend all appointments and hearings to which they are summoned as part of the process being advanced on them. Efromovich is the president of a 2022 Italian start-up airline,

AeroItalia Aeroitalia Società a responsabilità limitata, SRL is an Italy, Italian airline. It operates a fleet of Boeing 737 Next Generation, Boeing 737s and ATR 72s from operating bases in Milan Bergamo Airport, Bergamo, Comiso Airport, Comiso and Rome ...

Family

Germán Efromovich is married to Hilda and they have three daughters. His life is spent shuttling between

and

Bogotá Bogotá (, also , , ), officially Bogotá, Distrito Capital, abbreviated Bogotá, D.C., and formerly known as Santa Fe de Bogotá (; ) during the Spanish Imperial period and between 1991 and 2000, is the capital city, capital and largest city ...

. He has a brother named José Efromovich, five years younger, who was the chairman of Avianca Brazil.Interview in Portuguese with Estadão TV
, 5 June 2011 (pt)

References

External links

Efromovich: Hardworking Visionary
Latin Trade, 25 May 2011

Efromovich: Hardworking Visionary
{{DEFAULTSORT:Efromovich, German Avianca Living people Brazilian businesspeople Colombian businesspeople Polish businesspeople Brazilian chief executives Colombian chief executives Polish chief executives 1950 births Bolivian emigrants to Brazil Bolivian Jews Brazilian Jews Colombian Jews Bolivian people of Polish-Jewish descent Brazilian people of Polish-Jewish descent Colombian people of Polish-Jewish descent Brazilian billionaires Colombian billionaires Polish billionaires Naturalized citizens of Colombia People from La Paz People named in the Paradise Papers