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Published Monday, Oct. 10, 2016, in Vol. 17, No. 200
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San
José, Costa Rica, Monday,
Oct. 10, 2016, Vol. 17, No. 200
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Colombian pair linked to drug aircraft By the A.M.
Costa Rica staff
Drug shipments by air through Costa Rica are less dangerous for smugglers than elsewhere. In Venezuela, the air force shoots down suspicious planes. That became clear in court filings in Los Angeles with the extradition of two suspected Colombian drug kingpins. They are accused of shipping thousands of pounds of cocaine from Colombian laboratories to Central American distribution hubs, ultimately destined for sale in Los Angeles and elsewhere in the United States, including more than $70 million in cocaine recovered by international law enforcement. Several small planes linked to the drug trade have crashed in Costa Rica, and some may have been linked to the operation federal officials say was run by Dicson Penagos-Casanova, 36, and Juan Gabriel Rios Sierra, 34. In fact, investigators are looking over the wreck of a small plane in Pochote de Paquera. It appears that a pilot wrecked the Cessna 210 on landing at an unregistered air strip. The crash happened Sunday, but the initial police on the scene reported no dead or injured or any kind of drugs. The crash was not far from the area’s main airport at Tambor. There have been several raids of illegal landing strips in Guanacaste and also some locations chopped out of the jungle for helicopters. The indictments in Los Angeles focus on two air shipments in January and May of 2015 with a combined 2,880 kilograms (approximately 3.2 tons) of cocaine, which has a black market wholesale value of approximately $72 million, said prosecutors. Both shipments were ultimately recovered by international law enforcement after two aircraft crashed. The January 2015 cocaine shipment was shot down by the Venezuelan air force shortly after takeoff. Soon thereafter, Dutch law enforcement recovered kilogram-sized packages of cocaine that were floating in the Caribbean Sea near Aruba. The May 2015 aircraft crashed into the Caribbean Sea near the Colombian port of Barranquilla after its engine failed. The indictment also outlines intercepted communications in which Penagos and Rios coordinated the cocaine shipments and discuss the two downed aircraft, including sharing an article from a Honduran newspaper reporting on the January 2015 shoot-down and speculating on whether the May 2015 crash was also the product of intervention by the Venezuelan military, prosecutors said. Courts in Limón will be beefed up By the A.M.
Costa Rica staff
The Judiciary has moved to put two more judges in the Circuito Judicial de Limón and to beef up security in the building that houses the courts there. That decision came Friday from the Presidencia de la Corte Suprema de Justicia in the wake of high-profile shootings in the Caribbean community. Judicial officials also said that they would make an effort to speed up prosecution of drug cases. The shootings are believed to be linked to drug gang conflicts. The court building also houses the Ministerio Público, the Judicial Investigating Organization and the Defensa Pública. Judicial employees there are frequent targets of threats. Home invasion suspects remanded By the A.M.
Costa Rica staff
Investigators say that a retired Corte Suprema magistrate was tricked by the daughter of a former employee. The former magistrate is Álvaro Fernández, 73, who was left for dead by intruders at his Poás de Alajuela home. The man suffered 12 stab wounds. The Poder Judicial said that two men and a woman accused in the crime have been remanded to preventative detention. They were detained Thursday in Grecia and Tacacorí de Alajuela by judicial investigators. The crime happened Sept. 12 when two men and a woman arrived at the magistrate’s home about 7 p.m. They said they were seeking a legal referral. The magistrate said he let them in because he knew the woman, the daughter of an ex-employee. After a brief conversation, the trio turned on him, hit him in the head with a pistol and knocked him to the floor where he was stabbed multiple times. Deadline reset for political letters By the A.M.
Costa Rica staff
Some U.S. states already have begun absentee voting, so A.M. Costa Rica is moving up slightly the deadline for letters to the editor expressing a political preference in the Nov. 8 general elections. Originally the deadline was Oct. 14. The new deadline is Wednesday, Oct. 12. Readers are invited to express their preferences for U.S. president and other national offices. After Oct. 13, letters of a political nature involving the Nov. 8 election will not be published.
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A.M. Costa Rica Third News Page |
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San
José, Costa Rica,
Monday,
Oct. 10, 2016, Vol.
17, No. 200
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 Ministerio de
Educación Pública photo
Here are some of the winners in the education
ministry’s faroles contest |
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| Farol
contest displayed creativity of public school students |
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By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The simple street lantern has evolved into complex works of art. Witness the Ministerio de Educación Pública’s faroles contest. There were 300 entries this year, and nearly all were elaborate miniatures of Costa Rican life. These are the lanterns school children carry in parades on the day before the Día de la Independencia. They are school projects with no small measure of parental input. That is why |
parents
were pictured in a photo of this year’s winners. This was only the second year of the contest, but the faroles have been part of the independence celebration for years. Students in primary and secondary grades participated, and the prize in each category was a plaque and 25,000 colons, a bit less than $50. The faroles originally were modeled after what colonial fathers would have carried when they met in the streets to discuss the news of independence in 1821. |
| Ministry
says that every vendor will have to use electronic
invoicing |
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By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The tax collecting ministry said Friday that every citizen will have to have access to a system that can emit electronic invoices. That statement was contained in a Ministerio de Hacienda statement issued in anticipation of approval of a tax fraud bill. The lengthy memo listed a number of changes that the bill would effect upon passage. The bill itself is being reviewed for constitutionality by the Sala IV. Previous summaries said that only major businesses would be involved with electronic invoices, called factura electrónica after the Spanish name for invoices. The Dirección General de Tributación said that every taxpayer would have to have an account so that any financial transaction would be run through a central data base to which tax inspectors have access. This is expected to create expenses for small business and freeze transactions when the internet goes out of service. |
In
addition, the bill makes changes in tourism rentals in
that the bill restates the rule that rentals for under a
month are subject to the 13 percent sales tax.
Landlords, too, would have to have electronic invoicing. The central government wants to raise the tax rate, but that is in another bill. The ministry also said that it would continue efforts to stimulate consumers to demand invoices. The big change for businesses is the creation of a secret list of shareholders that will be open to access by the ministry and the Instituto Costarricense sobre Drogas. This would have to be filed with the Banco Central de Costa Rica each year and whenever there are significant changes in the shareholders. This part of the bill may run into constitutional problems because it demands access to private affairs. The ministry says this is necessary to catch tax cheats, even though most big businesses already have their shareholder list on file if they do business with the government. That is an anti-corruption measure that has been in force for years. |
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San José, Costa Rica, Monday, Oct. 10, 2016, Vol. 17, No. 200
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| Trump
says he will appoint special prosecutor for Mrs. Clinton |
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By the A.M. Costa Rica wire
services
with staff reports Donald Trump said he would name a special prosecutor to investigate Hillary Clinton once he took office. She belongs in jail, he told her during the presidential candidates’ second debate. He cited the supposed 33,000 emails Mrs. Clinton had destroyed. They were generated during her time as secretary of State and most likely were covered by the Freedom of Information Act that prohibits such destruction. Trump also made much of the Federal Bureau of Investigation report on the emails that said Mrs. Clinton behaved irresponsibly. Mrs. Clinton again said she made a mistake in using a private internet server. She denied any of her emails contained secret government information or were hacked. Trump also continually called her a liar and brought up the secret texts of speeches she made to Wall Street interests that have just been released by Wikileaks. The texts show that what Mrs. Clinton said stands in sharp contrast to the positions she has taken during this year's U.S. political campaign. WikiLeaks released the Clinton transcripts Friday, two days before the second debate. But they were at first overlooked in the intense news coverage of the recorded video showing Trump's unguarded comments about women. An email said to have been sent in January by Mrs. Clinton's campaign research director included excerpts from 15 of more than 100 speeches she gave after leaving the State Department, appearances that together netted her more than $21 million. In a 2014 speech to Goldman Sachs executives, Mrs. Clinton described herself as being out of touch with middle-class American life, "kind of far removed" from her own solid middle-class upbringing. During another meeting with Brazilian bank executives, Mrs.Clinton is said to have confided that she has a dream of a "hemispheric common market with open trade and open borders," a position that does not resemble her more recent campaign oratory. To investment bankers from the Goldman Sachs Group and other prominent financial firms, Mrs. Clinton said she views the financial industry as a partner with government on policy issues. Mrs. Clinton cited efforts by Abraham Lincoln to have Congress pass the 13th Amendment abolishing slavery as a precedent for presidents to say one thing and believe another. Trump ridiculed the Lincoln reference. Trump entered into the debate Sunday night at Washington University in St. Louis in serious need of a strong performance. Some top Republicans urged Trump to drop out of the race after the 2005 tape surfaced in which he made comments about women, saying he can grope them because he is a star. Trump apologized for the candidly-recorded comments in 2005, calling it locker-room talk and that he is not proud of it. He said he is embarrassed and hates what he said, insisting he has great respect for women and that it is time to talk about more important things. He also denied ever sexually assaulting a women just because he felt his celebrity status allowed him to. Mrs. Clinton said while she has disagreed with the policies of |
Commission on Presidential Debates/Mark Abraham
Donald Trump turns his back on Hillary Clinton during
the second debate Sunday night.previous Republican candidates, this is the first time she has questioned a candidate's fitness to serve as president. Despite his apology, Mrs. Clinton said the tape shows exactly who Trump is. She also pointed out that Trump has insulted and denigrated minorities, Muslims, and prisoners of war. Trump accused Mrs. Clinton's husband, former president Bill Clinton, of sexually abusing women in the White House and said as a defense attorney, Mrs. Clinton defended the accused rapist of a 12-year-old girl. Trump and Mrs. Clinton also battled over the future of President Barack Obama's signature health care law. Mrs. Clinton, acknowledged that the law has raised premiums and prices of drugs, but she vowed to fix it, unlike Trump, who promised to replace it. Mrs. Clinton said she would appoint Supreme Court justices who have real world experience trying cases, while Trump said his choices would be people who are well thought of and would respect the U.S. Constitution. He cited the late justice Antonin Scalia as an example. Mrs. Clinton hit out at Trump over taxes. Asked by an audience member what they would do to get the wealthiest Americans to pay their fair share, Mrs. Clinton said it was amusing to hear from Trump, the man who probably has not paid taxes in 20 years. Trump said he was proud of knowing the tax code well enough to take advantage of it and pointed out that some of Mrs. Clinton's wealthy donors have done the same thing. He cited depreciation deductions in the tax code. These allow him to postpone the payment of taxes into future years. Mrs. Clinton said she would not put ground forces into Syria, saying that would not be a smart strategy. She called Aleppo a catastrophic situation, and that Russia is determined to destroy the city in an effort to keep Bashar al-Assad in power, and said she supports efforts to hold Russia and the Syrian regime accountable for war crimes in the ongoing Syrian civil war. Trump said he disagrees with his running mate, Mike Pence, who called for strikes on Syrian government targets, but Trump saved most of his comments on Syria for President Barack Obama. Trump said the world laughed when Obama declared a line in the sand in Syria. He also said Mrs. Clinton does not know who the rebels are in Syria. He blamed much of the current situation in the Mideast on her and Obama. |
Here's reasonable
medical care
Costa Rica's world class medical specialists are at your command. Get the top care for much less than U.S. prices. It is really a great way to spend a vacation. See our list of recommended professionals HERE!amcr-prom
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| What we published this week: | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Earlier |
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of
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Colorado S.A. 2016 and may not be reproduced anywhere
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A.M. Costa Rica's Fifth news page |
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San José, Costa Rica, Monday, Oct. 10, 2016, Vol. 17, No. 200
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and moves into mid-Atlantic By the A.M. Costa Rica wire
services
The storm formerly known as Hurricane Matthew has lost its hurricane status, weakening to a post-tropical cyclone as it neared the end of a week-long charge through Caribbean islands and along the U.S. Atlantic coast that killed nearly 1,000 people, most of them in Haiti. The storm also flattened communities and wrecked agriculture in the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Cuba and the Bahamas. Haiti has declared three days of national mourning, President Jocelerme Privet's office said, in solidarity with the parents and friends of the victims of Matthew and residents of the region who are suffering from the hurricane's impact. Matthew is moving northeastward over North Carolina's Outer Banks with maximum sustained winds of 120 kilometers per hour, half as strong as they were a week ago, but substantial enough for U.S. meteorologists to continue warning of the storm's danger. Serious flooding and power outages affecting hundreds of thousands of people continued along the U.S. east coast from Florida north to Virginia, at least 15 people were killed in the storm, according to media reports Sunday. "Our state is facing major destruction and, sadly, loss of life,'' said North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory. Matthew was the most powerful storm to hit the U.S. coast in nearly a decade, and one of the longest-lasting major hurricanes on record. One preliminary analysis puts damage estimates in the U.S. in the billions of dollars. (One A.M. Costa Rica reader said the St. Augustine, Florida, area suffered a lot of damage.) The hurricane was at its most powerful when it ravaged the Caribbean nearly a week ago with winds of 235 kilometers per hour. Although more than 900 deaths have been reported in Haiti, many areas of that impoverished country have not yet been thoroughly surveyed. Haiti says 1.5 million people have been affected by the hurricane and 350,000 are in need of immediate assistance as most are homeless. The U.S. military has been deploying aid to Haiti by air and sea, food and medicine as well as equipment, including heavy-lift helicopters, bulldozers, water-delivery vehicles and mobile operating rooms. The United Nations Children's Rights & Emergency Relief Organization says the conditions in Haiti are perfect breeding grounds for waterborne diseases. Marc Vincent, the U.N. representative in Haiti says, "Every day that goes by increases the threat of cholera." As Matthew passed over Haiti it also raked the eastern tip of Cuba. Few reports of casualties or damage have emerged since Tuesday, but the island nation is expected to need massive quantities of relief supplies. The Dominican Republic, which lies on the eastern half of Hispaniola Island, bordering Haiti, also felt Hurricane Matthew's power. The storm later coursed through the Bahamas before traveling north along the U.S. east coast, slowly weakening, but remaining just offshore until it made landfall in South Carolina Saturday. The catastrophic damage this week in Haiti was made worse because the impoverished country is still recovering from a devastating earthquake in 2010. Thousands of people who have been living in flimsy shelters since the earthquake saw those washed away by the hurricane, which also destroyed a bridge that is the only link between a large portion of southern Haiti and the rest of the country. Officials have warned the list of casualties will likely climb, perhaps significantly, as rescuers manage to reach remote villages. Video images from Haiti showed entire landscapes of metal shanties that lost their roofs in the winds and driving rains, along with downed trees and fields of mud from overflowing rivers. One Haitian town with a population of 30,000, Jeremie, was destroyed, according to one report. The International Red Cross has issued an emergency appeal for $6.9 billion in relief aid for Haiti, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. Pioneering womb transplants generate possibility of hope By the A.M. Costa Rica wire
services
When the young Australian cervical cancer patient learned she had to lose her womb in order to survive, she proposed something audacious to the doctor who was treating her: She asked if she could have a womb transplant, so she could one day carry her own baby. This was nearly two decades ago, when the Swedish doctor Mats Brannstrom was training abroad to be a physician. “I thought she was a bit crazy,'' Brannstrom said. But Brannstrom didn't dismiss her idea. Instead, after he returned to Sweden he began a series of painstaking research projects to learn whether it might be possible to transplant a womb, despite criticism that the unheard-of procedure was dangerous, medically unnecessary, and impossible. Brannstrom went on to become the first doctor to deliver babies, five so far, from women with donated wombs. No other doctor in the world has succeeded, despite attempts in the U.S., Saudi Arabia and Turkey, and ongoing efforts in China, Britain, France, the Czech Republic and elsewhere. The first of Brannstrom's patients' babies was born in 2014 and the fifth arrived in January. Another is due in early 2017. Brannstrom is working with doctors at Harvard Medical School and the Mayo Clinic to help women beyond Sweden get access to the procedure. Doctors at Baylor University in Texas, including two former members of Brannstrom's team, announced this week they performed four womb transplants. One was successful, but not yet ready to attempt a pregnancy. And scientists, many of whom were both doubtful and critical before, now believe Brannstrom's work could help them extend the use of organs for those who need transplants and learn how embryos implant in the uterus after conception, a poorly understood but critical stage in pregnancy. To figure out if womb transplants were even feasible, Brannstrom first asked Rana Akouri, then one of his doctoral students, to start experimenting in rodents in 1999. He said he picked Ms. Akouri because of her delicate surgical skills. A mouse uterus is only less than an inch long (about 2 centimeters). The surgery was so complex, Ms. Akouri needed four custom-made tools to perform the microscopic operations. After nearly two years, Ms. Akouri noticed in the belly of one of her mice a slight bulge. Too impatient to wait, she performed a cesarean section that evening and found two tiny babies inside. “I called Mats at 10 p.m. and told him, ‘one of our mice is pregnant!’” she said. That night, Brannstrom said, was the first time he thought that a womb transplant in humans might actually be possible. “If it hadn't worked in mice, we would have quit,” he said. Over the next decade, Brannstrom and his team performed hundreds of uterus transplants in rats, sheep, pigs and monkeys. Because Sweden forbids experiments in non-human primates, Brannstrom and 10 other doctors and nurses flew to Kenya nearly 20 times to perfect things like their surgical technique and the use of immune-suppressing drugs in baboons. Brannstrom described the less-than-ideal conditions in Nairobi. Among other things there were no regular showers and power failures during surgery. In 2012, it was time to try the surgery in humans. He obtained ethical permission to perform womb transplants in nine Swedish women. He then held an information session one evening in the southern city of Gothenburg, where the operations were to take place. “We were quite frank in telling them, ‘This is not an infertility treatment, you're participating in a scientific trial,’” he said. “We're going into the unknown.” Of the nine women who had the transplants, two had their wombs removed when complications arose. Five women had healthy babies and the last two are trying to get pregnant. At the time, many fertility experts considered it an outlandish pursuit. “I thought this was crazy, a high-risk surgery for no reason,” said Tommaso Falcone of the Cleveland Clinic in the U.S. But a trip to Sweden to see Brannstrom's clinic changed his mind. Falcone is now at the forefront of the Cleveland Clinic's womb transplantation project. He and colleagues performed the first such operation in the U.S. in February, although the organ had to be removed after the patient developed an infection. Falcone predicts that Brannstrom's work will lead to a better understanding of embryo implantation. And he marveled at the fact that babies have been born from organs once flushed with a cold solution rendering them technically dead before being placed into the recipient. “Miscarriages are happening all over the place but here you have these dead uteruses that can carry a baby,” he said. Other experts thought it was astonishing that wombs of some post-menopausal women were able to grow healthy babies after being transplanted. Doctors typically expect younger organs to work better, but in the case of womb transplantation, organs from older women appeared rejuvenated after being dosed with hormones. “All of a sudden, you have this old organ doing things that you only expected a young uterus to do,” said Stefan Tullius, chairman of transplant surgery at Harvard Medical School, who said that could lead to insights into extending the use of other organs. Until now, Brannstrom has only used live donors, considered by some to be unethical because it means putting a healthy woman at risk for a procedure that isn't life-saving. The wombs are intended to be kept for a maximum of two pregnancies and are then removed so that patients can stop taking anti-rejection medicines. Brannstrom believes doctors in other countries will soon deliver more babies from women with transplanted wombs and predicts that the surgery will one day become routine. Emelie Eriksson, who received a womb transplant and then had a baby boy in 2014, said she could never thank Brannstrom enough. “I think I need to thank him a thousand times more,” she said. “He's my hero. He made it possible for me to have a child.” Santos says he will donate Peace Prize money to nation By the A.M. Costa Rica wire
services
Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos says he will donate his Nobel Peace Prize winnings to the victims of the 50-year-long war between the Colombian government and marxist rebels. Santos was awarded the more than $900,000 prize Friday for reaching a peace deal with the rebels earlier this year. He said Sunday he will donate the money to projects, foundations or programs that deal with victims and reconciliation. He also vowed to see peace with the rebels even after Colombian voters narrowly rejected the deal in a referendum last week. "We're going to persevere. We will persist, persist, persist and persist until we implement the agreement that was signed. If we have to make adjustments to what we have already agreed, we will make those adjustments." Santos spoke at a ceremony in Bojaya, where rebels threw a grenade into a church when they tried to take control of the western town in 2002, killing more than 100 civilians. In all, the five-decade conflict has killed more than a quarter million people. Colombians who voted against the peace deal say they are angered that under the accord, Fuerzas Armadas Revollucionarias de Colombia fighters would avoid prison and other strong punishment for such massacres and other terrorist acts. Issue of higher minimum wage on the November Maine ballot By the A.M. Costa Rica wire
services
Steve Corman believes it is his responsibility to pay a living wage to his employees at Vena’s Fizz House, a bar and restaurant in Portland, Maine. Even though he’s still trying to grow his business and make a profit, Corman sees the hotly contested issue of minimum wage increases as a moral question, not just an economic one. That’s why he supports a question on the ballot in Maine this election, one that would allow voters to directly affect their state’s economic future. Maine’s ballot question is one of many across the country that would increase the minimum wage and comes at a time when income inequality and job growth hold a central place in the public discussion. If Question 4 passes, the minimum wage in Maine will gradually increase up to $12 an hour by 2020 and bring the wages of tipped employees, who are paid much less under federal law, up to the level of all other minimum-wage workers by 2024. Multiple minimum wage proposals have failed in the Maine state legislature, but under the state’s unusually open ballot referendum system, citizens with enough grass-roots support have brought the proposal up for a vote of the people this November. Workers across the nation have demonstrated for higher wages, arguing the system can be unforgiving of mistakes or gaps in education. The Fight for $15 campaign, advocating for raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour nationwide, has been vocal this election season. Former Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders made Fight for $15 a leading issue in his candidacy, pushing it onto the Democratic Party platform. Hillary Clinton, the eventual nominee, has repeatedly said on the campaign trail that no minimum wage worker should work full time and still live in poverty. She says she supports Fight for $15. The Republican presidential nominee, Donald Trump, maintains that increases in the minimum wage works best at the state and local levels, allowing for adjustments tied to the economic conditions in specific regions. He has said he would support an increase in the federal rate of up to $10 per hour. Analysts differ on the economic impact of minimum wage increases on state and local economies. Many argue a raise would allow workers to funnel more money into the economy, while others say it would hurt business owners, causing a negative impact on their spending and forcing them to raise prices. |
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| What we published this week: | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Earlier |
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Colorado S.A. 2016 and may not be reproduced anywhere
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| A.M. Costa Rica sixth news page |
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San José, Costa Rica, Monday, Oct. 10, 2016, Vol. 17, No. 200
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Bee colones full of pesticides, study
finds
By
the University of Maryland news staff
Honey bee colonies in the United States have been dying at high rates for over a decade, and agricultural pesticides, including fungicides, herbicides and insecticides, are often implicated as major culprits. Until now, most scientific studies have looked at pesticides one at a time, rather than investigating the effects of multiple real-world pesticide exposures within a colony. A new study is the first to systematically assess multiple pesticides that accumulate within bee colonies. The researchers found that the number of different pesticides within a colony, regardless of dose, closely correlates with colony death. The results also suggest that some fungicides, often regarded as safe for bees, correlate with high rates of colony deaths. The study appeared online in the journal Nature Scientific Reports. The researchers followed 91 honey bee colonies, owned by three different migratory commercial beekeepers, for an entire agricultural season. The colonies began their journey in Florida and moved up the East Coast, providing pollination services for different crops along the way. They also spent time in locations meant for honey production, as well as holding areas where beekeepers prepare large numbers of colonies for upcoming pollination contracts. A total of 93 different pesticide compounds found their way into the colonies over the course of the season, accumulating in the wax, in processed pollen known as bee bread and in the bodies of nurse bees. All three measures correlated with a higher probability of colony death or queen failure. The study results also suggest that some fungicides, which have led to the mortality of honey bee larvae in lab studies, could have toxic effects on colony survival in the field. In the current study, pesticides with a particular mode of action also corresponded to higher colony mortality. For example, the fungicides most closely linked to queen deaths and colony mortality disrupted sterols, compounds that are essential for fungal development and survival. “We were surprised to find such an abundance of fungicides inside the hives, but it was even more surprising to find that fungicides are linked to imminent colony mortality,” said Kirsten Traynor, a postdoctoral researcher in entomology and lead author on the study. “These compounds have long been thought to be safe for bees. We’re seeing them at higher doses than the chemicals beekeepers apply directly to the colonies to control varroa mites. So that is particularly concerning.” The research team did not find a significant contribution from neonicotinoid pesticides. These compounds, derived from nicotine, are currently some of the most common pesticides in use globally. Because of their ubiquitous use, neonicotinoids have received significant media attention for their potential role in honey bee declines. |
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| From Page 7: Seven plead guilty in fake tax return scam By the
A.M. Costa Rica staff
Seven defendants have pleaded guilty in a fake tax return scheme that involved some expats in Costa Rica. In all, 7,000 U.S. taxpayers were victims. Federal prosecutors said this is a large-scale international identity theft scheme that laundered more than $14 million in fraudulently obtained tax refunds by using bogus Republic of Armenia passports. Prosecutors in Los Angles, California, said that 11 defendants now have been charged as a result of the investigation, and seven defendants have pleaded guilty. One is a fugitive, and three are pending trial. Ten of the defendants are accused of using fraudulent foreign passports to commit identity theft by opening numerous bank accounts and mailbox addresses with the stolen identities. According to the criminal complaints, they used fraudulent passports from the Republic of Armenia, Georgia, and the Czech Republic that had the names of identity theft victims but the defendants’ photographs. The mailboxes and bank accounts were opened across Los Angeles and Orange counties. “Stolen identity refund fraud schemes have become a significant, nationwide problem that victimize the United States government, individuals who are identity theft victims and all taxpayers who end up paying for these fraudulent schemes,” said U. S. Attorney Eileen M. Decker. “These defendants created a complex, international scheme in an effort to conceal their fraud, but it was not sufficient to shield them from discovery and prosecution.” Expats are particularly vulnerable because they can file tax returns later than most Americans. Once crooks have full names and Social Security numbers, they can create online accounts with the U.S. Internal Revenue Service in the names of victims. Then they file fake tax returns showing that large refunds are due. The money usually is deposited in the bank accounts set up under the fake names. |
