2023-11-08 23:33:04
SAN JOSÉ (AP) — The judicial police in Costa Rica arrested eight officials of the state-run National Bank on Wednesday as suspects in a million-dollar cash theft reported two weeks ago that exceeded six million dollars.
Since October 24, the Prosecutor’s Office began an investigation into the theft of 3,293.8 million colones (6.1 million dollars) stolen from the vaults of the largest bank in Costa Rica.
The officials arrested in 11 raids carried out on Wednesday were suspended from their positions by the bank while investigations continued. Now they are being investigated for the crimes of money laundering, facilitation of money theft and breach of duties.
In addition to the eight people, the Prosecutor’s Office is investigating whether the bank’s legal director issued a counterorder to delay the complaint regarding the missing money, detected since October 3, as acknowledged by the banking authorities.
The director of the Judicial Investigation Agency explained that this operation has been called “Gallo Tapado”, which is the popular way of referring to the purchase of lottery tickets without knowing what number it is. One of the accused would have spent sums between 200 and 6,000 dollars daily in this game of chance.
Zúñiga commented that the investigations indicate that those involved would have taken advantage of a blind spot in the surveillance camera system to keep the money in a paper envelope and withdraw it little by little from the bank.
“There was an omission on the part of all the other officials, they did not properly monitor that this person was stealing this money; He might even leave very calmly with the envelope in his hands, passing through the security posts and there was never any internal control in this regard,” he added.
For his part, the attorney general, Carlo Díaz, detailed that the last review that was physically carried out on the amount of cash that the bank managed in the custody of a treasurer named Olivas, dates back to 2019.
“From now on we have to do other errands such as opening bank accounts and so on; and this will involve more time to connect with other people,” he commented.
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