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| A.M. Costa Rica Second newspage |
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| San José, Costa Rica, Friday, Jan. 29, 2010, Vol. 10, No. 20 | |||||||||
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| Costa Rica Expertise Ltd http://crexpertise.com E-mail info@crexpertise.com Tel:506-256-8585 Fax:506-256-7575 |
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 Ministerio de Gobernación,
Policía
Suspect in Filadelfia is handcuffed on the ground.y Seguridad Pública Small-time drug
arrests
seem to be daily routine By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
There is no end to the number of small time drug dealers. Nearly every day the Policía de Control de Drogas or the Judicial Investigating Organization make one or more arrests. Thursday judicial agents detained a man in Barrio Bambú in Filadelfia, Guanacaste. The 34-year-old man had two pistols in his home when agents made the raid. They said they found 94 crack rocks, seven packets of cocaine, each weighing 25 grams, and colons and dollars. Sunday the Policía de Control de Drogas detained a 64-year-old man in la Rita de Pococí, Limón. Confiscated were 43 doses of suspected crack cocaine. Tuesday, the Policía de Control de Drogas detained members of a family in Villa Bonita de Alajuela. They said this was the third "narcofamilia" whose business they had interrupted in a week. The two previous cases were in Isla de Moravia, San José, and in Siquirres de Limón. Also Tuesday the Fuerza Pública in Heredia detained a man officers identified as a distributor in La Cuenca, Guararí. He had what officers said were 190 doses of crack and 46 doses of marijuana. Also Sunday the anti-drug police detained a 47-year-old Costa Rican at Juan Santamaría airport and said he was transporting four kilos of cocaine. Fingerprinting site added for immigration and weapons By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The demand for fingerprints has become so great that the security ministry is designating a second office to handle the load. The new office is in San Pedro 400 meters south of the Fuente de La Hispanidad, the big fountain in front of Mall San Pedro. It is called the Oficina de Seguridad Privada. The hours here and at the central offices of the ministry in San José will be from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m., said ministry officials. Fingerprinting is essential for weapons permit applications and for those seeking the various types of residency here. The Ministerio de Gobernación, Policía y Seguridad Pública usually submits the fingerprints to international agencies to check for possible criminal records. Some Ticos still stuck at famed Peruvian site By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Four Costa Ricans still were at Macchu Picchu Thursday, but nine had been removed from the tourist attraction by Peruvian government helicopters, according to the Costa Rican Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores y Culto. The Costa Ricans, all tourists, were cut off at the site by heavy rains that drenched the area and prevented surface transportation. They had been trapped since Sunday along with tourists from many other nations. More than 1,000 homes have been destroyed in Perú as a result of heavy rains and flooding.
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| A.M. Costa Rica third newspage |
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| San José, Costa Rica, Friday, Jan. 29, 2010, Vol. 10, No. 20 | |||||||||
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Liberia's mayor arrested for
failure to act on flooding
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By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Judicial agents detained the mayor of Liberia Thursday morning, and prosecutors quickly asked a judge that he be removed from his job. The mayor, Carlos Marín Muñoz, is facing five criminal allegations. Three of them are that he did not do his duty as mayor. These allegations related to an order by the Sala IV constitutional court and one by the Ministerio de Salud. The constitutional court in June 2009 issued a decision that related to flooding in Barrio La Cruz, and the mayor was ordered to take remedial action. The health ministry issued an order related to Barrio San Miguel, which suffered flooding last year. The Poder Judicial confirmed the arrest. It said that the fiscalia adjunta in Liberia, the regional prosecutor, was seeking restrictions against the mayor at the Juzgado Penal de Hacienda, an agency of the Segundo Circuito Judicial |
de San José. The restrictions
are that the mayor be removed from his job for six months, that he be
prohibited from leaving the country and that he be forbidden to
approach witnesses in the cases. There was no report later Thursday on
what the court decided. The Poder Judicial said that the cases extend back to 2007. There also are two allegations of disobedience to authority. Public officials can face criminal sanctions if they do not comply with orders of the Sala IV constitutional court, as well as some lower courts. Nearly all Sala IV decisions relating to official actions spell out in detail the responsibility of public employees to comply with the orders and cite the various penalties that can be assessed against someone who does not heed what the court says. Prison is a possibility. The Poder Judicial also said that the investigation also included the purchase of an asphalt machine that appears not to comply with specifications in the bidding process. |
| A column by any other name would still read as well |
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| At least once a year
since I have been writing this column, I wish the heading were
something other than “Living in Costa Rica.” It is such a
nebulous title. Soon after I said yes when Jay Brodell asked me to write a column for his online publication A.M. Costa Rica, we were walking near the Centro Cultural. Jay had his camera and said, “We should probably have a picture of you.” So I sat on the low stone wall near the centro and he snapped the one that has been on my column since. Then he said “We need a title.” The headline of an earlier column of mine was “I’ll take the City.” I obviously could not use that. Both of us, at a loss for any clever ideas, decided on the vague and yet limiting (to my mind) “Living in Costa Rica.” Today I have been thinking maybe “Gringa in Costa Rica”or “Expat in Costa Rica.” Both would better describe my point of view and the range of my interests, which are not always confined to Costa Rica. “What’s on My Mind” would probably be the most accurate. One of the reasons I want to change the name is that every time I get an e-mail from a reader telling me to stick to the subject of Costa Rica, I feel guilty. Usually I am told this when my comments are about U.S. politics and the writer disagrees with them. However, “Living in Costa Rica” does imply a subject. Maybe just “Living” would be better. Case in point: after returning from a week on a sailing yacht with my daughter, I discovered once again that it is so much easier for me to fall into the vacation mode than it is to readjust to my daily routine of living once I return home. I even have difficulty recalling what my habits were. Like when do I turn on my computer and tune in to C-span? I haven’t had a computer for a week (except to write and send my column). Which news programs do I want to watch (I had no TV onboard and survived nicely.) Just what was my exercise routine? Did I even have one? So that’s what I’ve been doing for a week — trying to get back to ‘normal — or maybe find a new normal. Back to my vacation: the only Costa Rican on the cruise |
was naturalist Carlos Picada, and since he is also from San José, I gave him a copy of my book, “Butterfly in the City.” Every day after that, Carlos would come up to me and, with a broad grin, tell me how something I had written about the Ticos was so true — that he was always interested in what Gringos thought of Costa Rica and its people and that I seemed to understand Ticos. I was, of course, happy to see him every time he approached me smiling. Curiously, I have found that Costa Ricans — especially teenagers learning English — are among my biggest fans, so I plan to give a copy to the colegios where English is being taught. I am in the process of finding a central location for distribution or a list of schools and their addresses. I welcome any help in getting the information. Then, this week I ran into the owner of Mora’s Used Books. I asked him how business has been since he moved his store to near the Holiday Inn. He said it was growing. I replied, “Your new location isn’t as easy to find as the old one.” He laughed. “I’ll tell you something you don’t know about Ticos,” he said. “We hear so many complaints from people about so many things — things we can’t do anything about that we’ve just stopped paying attention or answering.” It’s true. He had moved to the new location for good reasons that I didn’t know, and therefore, my comment really was not helpful. I said, “Thanks for the lesson.” Then added, “I may quote you.” Borrowing a chapter title from my book, maybe my column should be called “People, Places and Ponderings.” EDITOR'S NOTE: Jo probably would like suggestions for a new name for her column. She can be reached at the e-mail address above. |
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| A.M. Costa Rica fourth news page |
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| San José, Costa Rica, Friday, Jan. 29, 2010, Vol. 10, No. 20 | |||||||||
| Another Escazú scamster pleads
guilty to U.S. fraud charges |
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Special to A.M. Costa Rica
Stephen Schultz, formerly of Costa Rica, has entered a guilty plea in federal district court in Miami to 12 counts of an indictment pending against him, the Justice Department and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service announced. Schultz pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud, eight counts of mail fraud, and three counts of wire fraud. The actions against Schultz are part of the government’s continued nationwide crackdown on business opportunity fraud. Schultz was arrested Dec. 12, 2008, in Costa Rica following his indictment by a federal grand jury in Miami on Nov. 20, 2008. According to the charges against him, Schultz and a co-conspirator, Jeffrey Pearson, purported to sell beverage and greeting card business opportunities, including assistance in establishing, maintaining, and operating such businesses. Following his arrest in Costa Rica, Schultz was extradited to the United States. Earlier this month Dilraj Mathauda, an associate also from Escazú, entered a guilty plea in the same court to one count of an indictment pending against him, charging conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud. Schultz worked for USA Beverages Inc., Twin Peaks Gourmet Coffee Inc. and Cards-R-Us Inc. Beginning in 2005, USA Beverages sold business opportunities to own and operate coffee beverage display racks. USA Beverages rented office space in Las Cruces, N.M., and otherwise made it appear to potential purchasers that USA Beverages’ operations were fully within the United States. However, USA Beverages actually operated from Costa Rica and used voice-over-Internet protocol to make their telephone calls appear to come from the United States. After USA Beverages, Schultz worked for Twin Peaks, which was a Florida and Colorado corporation. Twin Peaks sold business opportunities to own and operate coffee beverage sale display racks. Twin Peaks had a mail service in Fort Collins, Colo., to make it appear to potential |
purchasers that
its operations were fully within the United States. In truth, Twin
Peaks also operated from Costa Rica. Schultz next worked for Cards-R-Us, which was a Nevada corporation that sold business opportunities to own and operate greeting card sale display racks. Cards-R-Us rented office space in Reno, Nevada, to make it appear to potential purchasers that Cards-R-Us’ operations were fully within the United States. Like USA Beverages and Twin Peaks, Cards-R-Us actually operated out of Costa Rica and were all part of the same overall operation. Schultz and his co-conspirators made, and caused others to make, numerous false statements to fraudulently induce the purchase of business opportunities, said the government. Potential purchasers were falsely told that the companies were established years earlier, had a significant number of distributors across the country, and had a track record of success, the indictment said. Potential purchasers were referred to references who told false tales of their success as business opportunity owners, it added. Through these and other misrepresentations, purchasers of the business opportunities were led to believe that they would likely earn substantial profits, said the government. "Business opportunity fraud targets Americans who are working hard to start a business and earn an honest living. While these fraud schemes may sometimes operate beyond our borders, they aren’t beyond the reach of United States law," said Tony West, assistant attorney general for the Civil Division of the Department of Justice. "The Justice Department is committed to prosecuting those who steal through false promises of financial success." In pleading guilty, Schultz admitted that his role in the conspiracy resulted in between $2.5 million and $7 million in losses to investors and harmed more than 250 victims. Schultz faces a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison on the conspiracy count, and 25 years on each of the mail and wire fraud counts. He also faces a possible fine and mandatory restitution. |
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| San José, Costa Rica, Friday, Jan. 29, 2010, Vol. 10, No. 20 | |||||||||
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Latin American news Please reload page if feed does not appear promptly |
Extradited
pair plead innocent in tax fraud case Special to A.M. Costa Rica
A California couple who were involved in an anti-tax scheme are back in the United States where they pleaded innocent to multiple charges. They are Lin M. Bartee and his wife, Christine J. Wenger-Bartee, who had the daring to dash off a letter to the Internal Revenue Service area director in Ogden, Utah, explaining why they did not have to pay taxes. They were involved with IRS Code Busters, a multi-level marketing scheme that purported to teach U.S. citizens why they need not pay income taxes. They made their initial appearances in U.S. District Court earlier this month. A federal grand jury returned an indictment June 26, 2008, charging the former Grass Valley, California, couple with conspiring to evade the payment of federal income taxes, making false statements in a bankruptcy case and fraudulently concealing property in connection with a bankruptcy case, according to the U.S. Justice Department. In addition, Mr. Bartee is charged individually with evading the payment of federal income taxes. The couple were arrested here in May 2009 and unsuccessfully fought extradition to the United States. They face another court hearing Feb. 8. According to the indictment, the defendants failed to file a federal tax return for the year 2001. In 2002, despite receiving substantial sums in income and from the sale of assets, the defendants again failed to file an income tax return for that year. At the same time, they transferred almost $240,000 to the woman's parents, who then transferred over half that amount to a bank in Costa Rica, said the indictment. In April of 2003, the defendants filed a voluntary bankruptcy petition in the U. S. Bankruptcy Court in Sacramento, California. The defendants failed to list the Internal Revenue Service as a creditor, and they also failed to identify all of the income they received in 2002, the indictment alleges. On Nov. 9, 2004, the bankruptcy court denied their petition. Shortly thereafter, the defendants left the United States for Costa Rica, the government said. IRS Code Busters provides information to people who do not want to pay income taxes. Much of the information is based on discredited legal theories. For example, some anti-tax literature distributed in the multilevel scheme said that the IRS puts a code in each citizen's file that required them to pay taxes. Bartee appears to have wanted the IRS to remove the mythical code from his file and wrote the letter to request that, said the Justice Department at the time of his indictment. |
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