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facing credit card case By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
A 50-year-old woman who works in the maintenance department of the Hospital Nacional del Niño is accused of stealing credit cards from fellow employees and then passing them to her children to run up bills for merchandise. In addition to the woman, also involved is a son, 23, his girlfriend of the same age, and a daughter, 16. The four were arrested Wednesday at their home in Pavas by agents from the Sección de Fraudes of the Judicial Investigating Organization. There have been four complaints filed in this case, and the amount of money involved is more than 1 million colons, some $1,800. Ciudad Colón burglaries blamed on local trio By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Two men and a 17-year -old youth are the principal suspects in a wave of home burglaries that have taken place over the last two months in Ciudad colón. The trio, 20, 26 and 17 years, were detained Wednesday in Quebrada Honda de Ciudad Colón. Although the thefts usually took place when no one was at home, when the thieves were surprised by a homeowner they threatened him or her with death if they made a police report, the Judicial Investigating Organization said. Although investigators said they now have five cases, they expect that more will be reported now that suspects have been detained. Our reader's opinion
'Let's get Enrique Villalobos,'former investor urges Dear A.M. Costa Rica: This is in response to the 'emotional plea' in yesterday's edition. The 'anonymous' soul who penned that pathetic piece would have received some sympathy, oh, I say, up to about five years ago. If that seems harsh, allow me to remind you that I was a foolish "investor" with The Brothers, one also affected by the closure of this outfit but then went undercover to find out what he could. As you correctly reported in your Jan. 8, 2004, issue, I then wrote the - to UCCR blasphemous term - "ponzi" and accused Enrique Villalobos of operating one. While I was a complete ignoramus to invest in such a shady scheme, I learned my lesson. I also became intrigued by financial fraud. In 2006 I was asked to translate a European study on the subject written for the Justice Department of The Netherlands. When Enrique fled in 2002, he left many investors devastated and financially broken beyond their comprehension. At least three committed suicide and scores had to drastically alter their lives in order to survive. Because of the feedback I received while maintaining a newsletter to a significant number of Villalobos investors, I learned that as time went by, the great majority managed to put their financial troubles behind them and move on. Some were slowed in their recovery by the blatant lies perpetuated by the fan-club UCCR, originally formed as United and Concerned Citizens of Costa Rica. Instrumental in assisting them were groups who had fraudulently recruited investors for the Villalobos gang claiming due diligence investigations, like Cornerstone Investment Circle in California and Covenant Management in Brentwood, Tennessee. When reading yesterday's "emotional plea." I practically sensed the atmosphere and secrecy that inundated Villalobos' offices. Besides the fact that the writer is unwilling to give his name, he not only believes that Enrique has money to return, he is also afraid of him. Just like UCCR board members who continue to boast that they will not withdraw their funds when holy-man Enrique returns, this poor soul makes promises to please his god. He has not learned a thing and believes that after almost seven years, there's a chance of recovering money. While it appears as true human tragedy at first, the ignorance overshadows the humanity right away. Enrique can be found but no one, including Tico justice, has really tried. The small rewards offered have not incited serious effort. I'd like to add $10,000 U.S. This amount is payable to the person(s) who provide verifiable proof of Enrique's whereabouts and will be paid upon his arrest and incarceration. If this occurs before June 30th of 2009, I believe I can convince some to add to this pot. Instead of whining, let's get the bastard. Hank Guichelaar
Longview, Terxas
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| A.M. Costa Rica third newspage |
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Autopista del Sol will use
electronic toll collecting devices
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By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Autopista del Sol will announce today a system of electronic toll collecting that is designed to reduce the wait by motorists at toll booths. The exact nature of the system will be outlined at a 10 a.m. meeting, but it appears that the company plans to provide electronic gates for motorists who have prepaid their tolls and carry an electronic device within the vehicle. The system will be the first in the county, although such systems have been in use in the United States and Europe since the 1980s. The announcement today comes with participation by Banco HSBC. Meanwhile, the highway is facing unhappy neighbors as workers move to close 19 illegal entrances in Santa Ana. There are hundreds of such entrances without permits along the highway route. They are illegal because the owners did |
not
obtain permits from the Ministerio de Obras Públicas y
Transportes. The ministry never pressed the point because some of the
businesses have been there for years. Among those entities affected is access to water tanks in Alto de Las Palomas, Guachipelín. The tanks are property of the Instituto Costarricense de Acueductos y Alcantarillados. Businesses include Pequeño Mundo, the Machu Pichu restaurant Land Rover, said the ministry, which also mentioned The Forum business park in Santa Ana. These firms and affected individuals are believed to be preparing court cases. Typically service roads are constructed to provide individual access while reducing the number of access points for major highways. The ministry and the highway concession holder, Autopista, made no mention of the access problems until Wednesday. A protracted court case could stall road construction. |
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Lawmaker proposes a bill to
outlaw uranium imports
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By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Tourists would be violating the law if they tried to smuggle in uranium in their luggage, according to a bill proposed for adoption in the Asamblea Legislativa. Alexander Mora Mora of Liberación Nacional has proposed the law that would prohibit the use of uranium and any of its forms, either enriched or depleted as well as other types of industrial uranium and other radioactive materials whose use is for weapons. He is president of the Comisión Permanente Especial de Derechos Humanos. He made specific reference to the weaponry used between the Palestinians and the Israelis in the Gaza strip this year. The creation of a proposed law is believed to have been influenced by activist Damacio López of the Campaign Against Depleted Uranium, who visited here recently. López and Herbert Reed, a U.S. veteran also active in the campaign, visited here two years ago to promote the ban. At the time Oscar López of the Partido Accesibilidad Sin |
Exclusión said he was
proposing a similar law. The military used depleted uranium as projectiles because the metal is more dense then lead and can give greater penetration against enemy armor. The metal also is used in armor for the same reason. Commercially it is used as boxes to contain radioactive materials and shielding in commercial and medical applications. The use is controversial, and some soldiers, like Reed, have said they were sickened by contact with depleted uranium dust or other fragments. Reed, who served with the New York National Guard in Iraq, is the poster boy for possible negative effects by U.S. depleted uranium technology. He makes frequent public appearances. When Reed was here the depleted uranium issue was being used as a weapon against the free trade treaty. Opposition lawmakers said that if Costa Rica passed the agreement, depleted uranium weaponry could be made here. |
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Unhappy real estate saleslady
who sparked probe gets her chance to testify
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By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
It was an unhappy real estate agent who sparked the criminal investigation into a $39.5 million loan from the government of Finland for medical equipment. The saleswoman, Ana Thalía Arteaga, was in court Wednesday telling her story. The woman was negotiating the sale of a $700,000 home in Valle del Sol in Santa Ana when the would-be buyer, Eliseo Vargas, broke off negotiations. The woman lost her commission. When she found out that Vargas was going to rent the home after the Corporación Fischel purchased it, she sought out reporters. |
Vargas was president of the Caja
Costarricense de Seguro Social at the
time. Corporación Fischel was a major supplier. The relationship looked promising enough for reporters to start digging. The Caja runs the hospitals and the clinics. What reporters and prosecutors found was the former president, Rafael Ángel Calderón Fournier, obtained a $9 million commission on the deal with medical manufacturers in Finland. The result is that Vargas, Calderón, and six associates, including Fischel executives, have been on trial since November facing a litany of corruption and bribery charges. |
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| A.M. Costa Rica fourth news page |
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Wisconsin firm to focus on
Costa Rica medical tourism
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By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
A Wisconsin firm has created a new division to concentrate on medical tourism to Costa Rica. The firm is HSA Clearing Corp. of Lake Geneva, which said it is the leading provider of health savings account educational services to financial institutions, employee benefit companies and health agents. The company is promoting Costa Rica as a place where a North American can save hundreds if not thousands of dollars on medical care, the firm said. It cited a study by the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions that said U.S. residents traveling abroad for medical cases are expected to increase 700 percent from 750,000 in 2007 to 6 million in 2010. "While many medical tourism providers are recommending travel halfway around the world to places like India and Singapore 12 time zones away, Costa Rican Medical Care is focusing only on the excellent care available in Costa Rica, a beautiful, friendly country much closer to home and in |
the Central Time
Zone," the firm said. "Costa Rica has the competitive advantage of geography, a stable economic and political system and an international reputation for the quality of its health care system. Many millions of people pay for health care out of their own pockets, said Tim Morales president of HSA Clearing Corp. These may be high earners who have the health savings accounts or no insurance at all. He added: “Many of our banking customers are self-insured. Having a cost-efficient alternative to high cost care in the States will mean lowering costs for these institutions. For example, a hip replacement can cost as much as $70,000 in the U.S. However, the same procedure in Costa Rica, including all tests, surgery, physician costs, rehabilitation, and follow-up care in the U.S., travel, lodging and meals in Costa Rica can run about $15,000 — all costs included” The firm mentioned these possible reasons to visit Costa Rica: bariatric surgery for weight control, angioplasty, heart by-pass, hip and knee replacement, ophthalmology and medical check ups, dental surgery and care, cosmetic and plastic surgery. |
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four-year U.S. prison term Special to A.M. Costa Rica
Concluding the first prosecution of its kind in the nation, a man associated with the “botnet underground” was sentenced late Wednesday to 48 months in federal prison for using his “botnets” — armies of compromised computers — to steal the identities of victims throughout the country by extracting information from their personal computers and wiretapping their communications. The man, John Schiefer, 27, of Los Angeles, used the online handle “acidstorm,” said the U.S. Attorney's Office there. He pleaded guilty last year to accessing protected computers to conduct fraud, disclosing illegally intercepted electronic communications, wire fraud and bank fraud. When he pleaded guilty, Schiefer admitted that he illegally accessed hundreds of thousands of computers in the United States and that he remotely controlled these compromised machines through computer servers. Once in control of the zombie computers, Schiefer used his botnets to search for vulnerabilities in other computers, to intercept electronic communications and to engage in identity theft. In connection with the wiretapping scheme, Schiefer admitted that he and others installed malicious computer code, known as malware, on zombie computers that captured electronic communications as they were sent from users’ computers. Because victims with compromised computers did not know that their computers had become infected and were bots, they continued to use their computers to engage in commercial activities, such as making online purchases. Schiefer’s spybot malware allowed him to intercept communications sent between victims’ computers and financial institutions, such as PayPal, the court papers said. Schiefer also admitted stealing information from numerous computers by accessing the PStore, which is intended to be a secure storage area of computers running Microsoft operating systems. To accomplish this, Schiefer installed malware on computers that caused them to send account access information, including usernames and passwords for PayPal and other financial Web sites, to computers controlled by Schiefer and others. Schiefer used that information to make unauthorized purchases using funds transferred directly from victims’ bank accounts. Finally, Schiefer admitted defrauding a Dutch Internet advertising company with his armies of zombie computers. Schiefer signed up as a consultant with the advertising company and promised to install the company’s programs on computers only when the owners of those computers gave consent. Instead, Schiefer and two co-schemers installed that program on approximately 150,000 zombie computers whose owners did not give consent. Schiefer was ultimately paid more than $19,000 by the advertising company. |
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