2023-05-29 10:00:21
Sale of company vehicles at a lower price, personal treats and transfers of company money to personal checking accounts and to a friend’s company. That is only part of the facts that Mundo Pacífico imputes to its former financial manager, Felipe Vielma Bascur.
The name of the executive appears in a criminal investigation by the prosecutor for economic crimes, América Vergarafollowing the cable operator initiated legal actions once morest his then trusted man.
It all goes back to the beginning of 2022, when shortly before assuming as Administration and Finance Manager of the firm founded in Concepción, the industrial civil engineer began with stealthy maneuvers.
In total, according to preliminary calculations by the company, the cable operator suffered an embezzlement of more than a billion pesos at the hands of Vielmawho now appears as a defendant in a case that is being conducted before the Fourth Guarantee Court of Santiago.
In parallel, the company seeks through civil justice the return of the money that, according to its balances, it was used by Vielma to pay personal debts and more.
Personal tastes thanks to Mundo Pacífico
According to the claim for compensation for damages filed by the firm before the Third Civil Court of Concepción – to which the BioBioChile Investigation Unit had access – its now ex-manager used different mechanisms to commit the embezzlement.
As read in the letter, Vielma made between January and March 2022 charges to the national quota of the firm’s credit card for more than $60 million. Your destiny? Personal expenses. The list included high bills at a Vitacura restaurant, other disbursements at La Cervecería, and purchases made through Mercado Pago, presumably at Mercado Libre.
In addition, they accuse that the then employee used the company’s international account in dollars to satisfy his own needs and indulge in some luxuries.
“He charged $14,900 to pay for expensive hotels, purchase of products on Amazon, payment of services of streaming (Amazon Prime), train tickets, travel insurance and, in short, expenses that are not related to the Mundo business”, the letter reads.
Many of these movements, for logical reasons, were not declared for company accounting purposes.
The foregoing, the lawyers point out in the lawsuit, “gives more than enough reason to presume (…) that Mr. Vielma’s intention was to hide the expenses from our client.”
“A confidential matter” in Mundo Pacífico
According to the libel, imagining that his actions would go unnoticed, Felipe Vielma made direct transfers of money from Mundo Pacífico between April and July 2022 to his personal checking accounts.
The maneuvers that he used to try to hide the transfers border on the crude, it is clear from the legal action. For example, he instructed the Finance staff to record false information in the company’s accounting system and went so far as to modify the recipient’s data on the bank statement to which only he had access.
For sample, a button. On April 20, 2022, Vielma – who until that date was still Assistant Manager of Administration and Finance – transferred $262 million to his BCI bank account. When the accounting deputy manager asked her to support the operation, she ordered her not to post it until the then finance manager left the company, the letter said.
When that happened and Vielma was definitively in charge, says the libel, the assistant manager asked her for the background once more. In this scenario, he ordered the payments to be recorded in the accounting as advances from a presumed supplier of the initials “AMS”. Recipient that the firm now classifies as “absolutely false” before the courts.
On another occasion, the subsequent internal audit indicates, Vielma changed the name of the recipient of two transfers for 30 and 35 million pesos made to his own account, replacing it with “Mercado Pago”. To disguise it in accounting, he asked the assistant manager of the area to register him as “MP”, warning him that it was a confidential matter.
An old friend
Another formula that Vielma Bascur used to embezzle Mundo Pacífico, the firm alleges, was electronic transfers of funds to two companies. What did they have in common? Both are owned by an alleged old friend of his, with whom she, according to the libel, maintains “a close and close relationship of trust.”
In total, they maintain, it was almost $250 million that the finance manager managed to divert to the accounts of Hecarim and Zelipa. In both, Francisca Aninat Versluys appears with 100% of the shares and 66.6% of the social rights respectively.
Likewise, the first of these two companies benefited from the purchase of 40 Mundo Pacífico vehicles at a much lower value than the market value. Instead of paying the $342 million that the cable operator appraises the mobile phones, the company of Vielma’s “friend” paid $113 million. ORn third of the real value, causing a patrimonial damage close to $230 million, accuses the cable operator.
Debts and return to Mundo Pacífico
Always according to information collected by Mundo Pacífico in its internal audit, the fact -which they describe as an “attack from within”- would have had a particular motivation.
They point out that Vielma would have used a large part of the money for a specific purpose: to pay personal debts. How did they come to that conclusion? According to the complaint, they analyzed her financial history at Equifax (formerly Dicom).
Said record indicates that until before the first transfers of millionaire amounts to his personal account in April 2022, Vielma Bascur was classified as a person with a very high risk of non-payment. Which might go hand in hand with personal debt.
After completing the transactions, financial reports indicate that it rose from 1 to 999 on the risk scale. In other words, he would have ceased to be a customer with delinquency before financial institutions and would have been classified as someone financially reliable.
Along these lines, following being fired even with a notice published in a regional newspaper in Bío Bío, Vielma would have “returned” money to the company through some transfers.
As the company points out in its presentation before the criminal justice system, in addition to acknowledging to the general manager, the people manager and the legal manager some of the facts described in the complaint, “both he (Vielma) and a representative of Hecarim SpA, they have been returning part of the appropriated money, which accounts for the recognition of the illegal acts and the participation in them”.
A secret case
The criminal case is substantiated under reserve before the Fourth Guarantee Court of Santiago. As verified by BBCL Investiga, the investigation -assigned to the prosecutor for economic crimes, América Vegara- is still advancing in an informal way.
This, since we are waiting for the procedures entrusted to the police and the result of an accounting expert in the company that allows confirming the damages denounced.
Consulted the defense lawyers of Felipe Vielma, they referred to point out that “the complaint filed by Pacífico Cable SpA contains statements that are false and that, at this time, we are disproving before the prosecutionattaching the corresponding documentation and requesting investigative procedures to that effect.”
Along these lines, they added that “in our opinion, in addition, there is in this case an account to be rendered pending by the president to the principal company, as has been raised in the civil case.”
“For the same reason, it is a case that still has a long way to go and we are sure that once the criminal investigation and trial of accounts have concluded, the accusations contained in the complaint will be distorted,” they pointed out.
For its part, the defense of the former manager’s alleged friend, Francisca Aninat, who is also accused in the criminal investigation and defendant in the civil case, indicated that -for now- they would avoid ruling on the case.
Consulted by BioBioChile, from the company they indicated:
The company WORLD Telecommunications He declares that, faced with the situation exposed, his spirit has always been to actively collaborate with justice to clarify the facts.
Mundo sued the executive and those responsible in order to clarify the facts of which he was the victim.
Despite the seriousness of the events, MUNDO reiterates its commitment to its customers, maintaining the highest standard of quality and reliability.
Now, everything must be resolved by justice.
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