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| San José, Costa Rica, Thursday, Oct. 14, 2010, Vol. 10, No. 203 | |||||||||
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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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its own school for pilots By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The Sinaloa cartel has its own flight school in Cuernavaca, México, where pilots of drug planes get their training, the U.S. government said Wednesday. The fact is relevant because a drug-laden small plane crashed in Pavas Sunday, although the cartel directing the flight has yet to be identified. The owners of the company that operated the plane are Mexicans. The U.S. Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control designated the flight school, individuals and other enterprises as drug cartel-related, including Sinaloa Cartel collaborator Alejandro Flores Cacho, 12 of his entities and 16 members of his financial and drug trafficking enterprise located throughout Mexico and Colombia. Also designated as drug smuggling organizations were Mantenimiento, Aeronautica, Transporte, y Servicios Aereos S.A. de C.V., an aircraft hangar and maintenance business located in Toluca, Mexico; Capicitacion Aeronautica Profesional S.C., the flight school in Cuernavaca, Mexico, and Aero Express Intercontinental S.A. de C.V., a Mexico City-based air cargo carrier. Flores is a pilot and a fugitive from U.S. justice. His cadre of pilots and operatives coordinate the delivery and distribution of narcotics by air and sea from South America to Mexico and then on to the United States, the Treasury Department said. Designation under the narcotics kingpin act means that U.S. firms cannot do business with the individuals or commercial entities. It also allows the United States to confiscate assets. The fact that the Sinaloa Cartel's use of aircraft was well known weighs against the surprise expressed by officials in Costa Rica when drugs were found on the small plane Sunday at the crash scene. The copilot died and the pilot is in Hospital Mexico. Both are middle-aged, so it is unlikely they learned their skills in Cuernavaca. Our reader's opinion
Letter comes in defenseof Chris Dodd, Barney Frank Dear A.M. Costa Rica: From the Tuesday edition: "The measure is named after Sen. Chris Dodd and Rep. Barney Frank, both of whom are not exactly ethhical paragons." What is the purpose of the above slur in the front page story about financial reform? Do you spell check? Note the spelling "ethhical." The sentence should have ended without adding the phrase "both of whom are not exactly ethhical (sic) paragons." Are you owned by FOX News Corporation? Willis Forrester
Covington, Georgia EDITOR'S NOTE: We thought that there was great irony in two of the biggest ethical violators in the U.S. Congress having their names attached to an ethics bill.
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| San José, Costa Rica, Thursday, Oct. 14, 2010, Vol. 10, No. 203 | |||||||||
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| Woman with gun kills rapist, but store owner was unarmed |
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By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Two crimes had dramatically different outcomes Wednesday because one of the victims had a firearm. Details are still sketchy on the late afternoon shooting in a rural area near Ciudad Colón. Initial reports say that a laborer tried to force himself on the woman who employed him. The report said he forced his way into the home with rape on his mind. The woman, described as being in her 30s, suffered scratches and bruises but the assailant suffered a bullet wound to the chest. She was being questioned Wednesday |
night. Her name and the name of the
dead man were not released. Less lucky was the owner of the Mini Super Lagos in that section of Heredia. Three robbers confronted him in his small store at mid-afternoon and demanded money. They were distracted briefly by the money in the cash drawer, and the proprietor tried to flee to seek help. One of the bandits shot him in the back. He died at the scene. Witnesses made a full identification of the trio who are known as robbers in the community, police said unofficially. They fled on foot to a low-income area nearby. |
| Creditors' court filing wants pardon for Enrique Villalobos |
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By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Five supporters of the fugitive financier Luis Enrique Villalobos are blaming the Costa Rican government for the collapse of the high-interest operation and are seeking compensation in the administrative courts and a pardon for the man who ran the scheme. The individuals are involved with the organization United Concerned Citizens & Residents. The five are John Manners, Frederick R. Pitts, Ronald Tucker, Solveig Marie Hallstrom and Katy France Tenza. The case was filed but has not yet been accepted. The lawsuit is mainly a retelling of what Vilalobos supporters have been saying since the raid of his business July 4, 2002: That Villalobos was an honest businessman who was damaged by an over-aggressive judiciary and police acting beyond their powers. The five also said they were treated unfairly because a criminal court has distributed money and goods confiscated from the Villalobos family in the wake of the conviction of his brother, Oswaldo, for aggravated fraud and money laundering. They claim that they should receive some of the money. The five did not join the criminal action that eventually resulted in the money awards. In fact, some of the five worked hard to get other creditors to drop their case. The court filing also bemoans the fact that one of the creditor lawyers got $2 million for negotiating a settlement with Oswaldo Villalobos. The lawyer was not named in the document, but he is Ewald Acuña. The news of the court filing had been reported, but the details of the allegations were not given. The filing has been translated into English and is on the organization Web site. Specifically the case is against the Costa Rican government in general, the Superintendencia General de Valores and the judiciary. The filing does not mention that Villalobos was paying about 3 percent per month in interest, and no one really knows what he was doing to generate that money. The trial court labeled the operation a ponzi scheme. The filing also is contradictory in that it says Enrique Villalobos has never been notified of charges against him |
and also says that the filers have
been in contact with him. Villalobos
fled in November 2002, and his brother was detained shortly thereafter.
If he still is alive, he is believed to be living in southern
Nicaragua, although police officials have been unable to locate him. He
sent A.M. Costa Rica a fax message when he left and later followed up
with an e-mail that was generated at a university in El Salvador. "At no time whatsoever, did we feel that our investments were at risk, and we always obtained the same yield agreed upon and negotiated," the filing says of the time before the raid. Canadian investigators came to Costa Rica and sought help from local authorities who had been investigating the Villalobos operation for years. The filing blames the local police for using the Canadian case as an excuse to make the raid. That probably is a true summary of the events. Eventually surviving members of the drug ring were convicted or pleaded guilty in Canada. Some had money with the Villalobos operation, although there was no indication that the brothers knew the origin of the money. The filing gives a good summary of the alternative interpretation of the case by the supporters of Villalobos. So that Costa Ricans are not burdened by a big money award to the five, the filing also asked that the Costa Rican government pardon Luis Enrique Villalobos and let him return to settle his debts privately with the five. Some of the five have long expressed the wish that Villalobos be allowed to return to pay what he owes them. However, none has specified a clear reason why he could not pay them by wire transfer from where he is now. Villalobos did not even respond when his brother was on trial. The filing cites the recent financial scandals involving the Roman Catholic Church, saying, in part, "the government has forced us to lose our savings, persecuting an innocent Costa Rican businessman, an individual who always honored his commitments to us. He has been persecuted within this country and abroad, but such is not the case with the clergy in this country." Some of his supporters have said Villalobos will enjoy immunity from prosecution in 2012 when the statute of limitation on the crimes expire. However, that depends on the nature of the crime alleged. The period is related to the possible sentence for the crime. His brother got 18 years. |
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| San José, Costa Rica, Thursday, Oct. 14, 2010, Vol. 10, No. 203 | |||||||||
 Gobierno de Chile/Alex Ibañez
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Franklin Lobo is greeted by
his daughter Carolina as he becomes the 27th miner to be rescued.
Sebastián Piñera watches and later greeted Lobo, who is a
local celebrity. He was a standout soccer player for the local
first-division team before getting a truck driver's job in the mine. |
| Marathon mine rescue moved faster than
experts expected |
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By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Chilean rescuers ended a marathon operation Tuesday and freed all 33 miners trapped underground for more than two months. All of the rescued miners were sent for medical treatment, and several of them are expected to undergo surgery in the coming days. Chilean officials say the rescue operation at the San Jose mine in northern Chile advanced more quickly than expected. Initially, officials said it might take 48 hours to pull the miners to the surface through a 622-meter (2,040-foot) rescue shaft. Rescue crews honed the process throughout the day, enabling them to pull each miner to the surface in about 15 minutes. Rescue crews and officials cheer and clap as each miner arrives at the surface, where family members are waiting for him. Medical teams rush each man to a hospital in nearby Copiapó for a thorough examination. Chile's President Sebastián Piñera is at the site to greet each rescued miner. After Victor Zamora surfaced, Piñera told him that he was never alone, saying that the government fulfilled its promise to bring the men back alive. The rescue ends a two-month-long ordeal for the men, who were trapped by a cave-in at the gold and copper mine Aug. 5. The men were cut off from the surface for 17 days, until a drilling crew located them. Chilean mining minister Laurence Golborne offered thanks to scores of experts and others who have helped carry out the rescue operation. But he cautioned that the job was not over yet. |
Golborne said
weeks of work are finally paying off, but officials will not be
satisfied until the rescue is completed. Health minister Jaime Mañalich says many of the miners appear to be in better health than expected. He says each miner will undergo a series of tests, including a lung x-ray and heart monitoring, and that some might receive psychiatric treatment, if needed. A few miners are expected to receive dental surgery in the coming days to treat abscesses and other conditions. Mañalich says the most serious case was a miner with pneumonia. He says the miner will likely remain in intensive care for several days to receive oxygen and other treatments. More than 1,000 journalists are covering the rescue operation at the remote San Jose mine in the Atacama desert. During the past two months, relatives of the miners and rescue crews have gathered outside the mine, forming a community they call Camp Hope. Millions of people around the world watched the rescue operation unfold on television. The rescue was covered live by Channel 7 Teletica, and the Repretel network used video feeds. Cable viewers had their choice of Spanish or English. In Washington, U.S. President Barack Obama says he watched the first miner being freed, adding that it was a tribute to the hard work of the rescue workers and the Chilean people. He thanked people from around the world who contributed to the operation, including a U.S.-based drilling team and experts from the U.S. space agency, NASA. |
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Latin American news Please reload page if feed does not appear promptly |
More
highway woes By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
There were more landslides on the Autopista del Sol early Wednesday after more rains. The location is near Orotina at about Kilometer 49, officials said. Heavy machinery was clearing the blocked lanes Wednesday. This is the highway that has been closed between Atenas and Orotina for weeks because of shifting soil and landslides. There also is a washed out section where the holder of the highway concession is installing two parallel bailey bridges to handle east and west traffic. Famous physician dies By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
A man who may well be the most important medical worker of the century died Wednesday. He was Longino Soto Pacheco, a surgeon who was born in 1923. He died in Hospital Clinica Católica. He was a pioneer in various forms of surgery, mostly relating to the heart and also was known as someone who would teach the skills to younger physicians. He worked his entire career at the Caja Costarricense de Seguro Social. His death was mourned in a statement from Casa Presidencial Wednesday night. The statement also pointed out the multifaceted life of the man, who also happened to be president of a first-division soccer football team. Soto also served as a legislative deputy. New area now for passports By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The immigration service has put into use a new hall for persons seeking passports. The structure cost $110,000 and was paid for with help from the International Organization for Immigration. The immigration director, Kathya Rodríguez Araica, said that the structure also would be used for gatherings of foreigners to further the agency's mandate to integrate foreigners into the Costa Rican culture. Party time involves guns By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Youngsters designated early Wednesday as party time in Heredia. Some 11 young persons were stopped near the Universidad Nacional after citizens complained of persons firing a weapon into the air and threatening them. When police stopped the Ford Explorer pickup they found 11 persons aboard. They also found .44-caliber and .39-caliber handguns and ammunition. The driver, identified by the last names of Morales Rusell, registered 1.63 on an alcohol test, officers said. Just .75 is drunk. All involved were detained. Atenas online with hospital By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Residents in the Atenas area can now make appointments for visits to the Hospital San Rafael de Alajuela by Internet. The area is the third to be connected that way. The others are Alajuela west and Poás. The Atenas area contains some 26,721 clients of the Caja Costarricense de Seguro Social. Expats recently have been required to affiliate with the Caja. In the past, these residents would have to travel the 26 kilometers to the hospital to make an appointment in person. Now they can get an e-mail address for the various departments by calling the hospital. The Atenas part of the system went into operation Wednesday. Appointments can be for all the medical specialties and surgeries except x-ray and laboratory, said the Caja. |
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