Friday 14 March 2003
Court Transfers Villalobos Brothers
Money
• Custody transferred from of banks to
the courts
Carlos Arguedas C.
carguedasc@nacion.com
Reprinted
and translated from La Nacion 13 March 2003
Click
here for the original article in Spanish
Approximately $8 million, frozen in 23 banking accounts of the companies related
to Ofinter and "The Brothers", were put in safekeeping of the Penal
Court of San Jose.
The decision affects an amount equivalent to ¢3.096 million, deposited in tica
currency, dollars and euros in different Costa Rican banks.
That money was frozen since last July of last
year, by request of the Canadian authorities on indications of money laundering.
The companies Ofinter and The Brothers - property of the brothers Villalobos
Camacho - was dedicated to taking deposits.
There they handled accounts for about 6,200
investors, 90 percent being foreigners.
Osvaldo Villalobos remains prisoner since
November of the 2002, as part of the penal process, whereas the whereabouts of
his brother Luis Enrique, considered the important man in this case, is not
known. The authorities believe that he is outside the country.
Initial protest
The decision to transfer the money was made on the 7th of March by judge Francisco Sanchez Faults,
on the request of the Ministerio Público.
The measurement caused the reaction of some
parties
involved in the penal process.
One of first in lamenting the measure was
Edgardo Garcia, Osvaldo Villalobos' lawyer, who argued that the accounts
were not of the accused but corporate accounts of legal companies.
He showed that this case began as the crime of
"legitimación de capitales, previsto en la Ley de Psicotrópicos",
the basis to freeze the accounts and other properties for three months.
However, according to the defense lawyer, the
investigation has taken the case to the crime of illegal
financial intermediation, by which does not require the immobilization of the
goods.
On that subject, the foreign investors of
Ofinter initiated proceedings to sue the country for the decision to freeze the goods before the ICSID, an international
organization. The pretension is
that they give back the money to them.
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