Wednesday 03 December
2008, San José, Costa
Rica
Following A Break In The
Weather, Limón Is Under
Water Again
Intelligence Director
Quits
Arias Shares Costa
Rica's Initiatives On Environment
Banco Nacional To
Shut Down ATM's At Night
The Avenidazo Is Back!
Brandy Marine To
Manage Costa Rica's Marina Papagayo
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Intelligence Director
Quits
The head of Costa Rica's
intelligence service,
Roberto Solórzano, quit
on Tuesday following a
police probe two weeks
ago into his deputy's
possible involvement in
an identity theft scam
that broke into a
database in order to
drain personal bank
accounts.
Police raided the main
offices of the Dirección
de Inteligencia y
Seguridad (DIS)
following complaint of
over nearly us$40.000 in
bank fraud affecting a
dozen people.
DIS deputy director,
Roberto Guillén, was the
focus of the police
raid, who along with a
group of accomplices is
suspected of using
personal information
from databases to create
false identity cards to
access bank account
information.
Using information from
the private personal
information Datum,
Guillén and his
associates were able to
obtain sufficient
personal information to
pull of the scam.
In Costa Rica several
companies provide banks
and anyone who is
willing to pay the
monthly fee with the
personal information
gathered from civil and
property registries,
banks and financial
institutions and their
clients.
Legislators began
discussion on a bill
that would control the
gathering and use of
personal information by
such companies, which
currently not regulated
nor is there any
legislation to protect
the personal information
of individuals and
complain if there
information is used
improperly.
The scam is an
embarrassment for Costa
Rica, which likes to see
itself as cleaner than
its crime-ridden and
often corrupt Central
American neighbors,
despite a string of
corruption scandals in
recent years involving
former presidents.
Solórzano acknowledged
in his resignation
letter that there had
been negligence in
security management, the
government said in a
statement.
Solórzano is not a
suspect in the fraud
investigation. |
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