After 2 years no court date for $12.3 million scam

ALMOST TWO YEARS  have elapsed since anti-corruption prosecutors sent to the judicial branch their investigations into  61 suspects in a $12.3 million scam involving grains intended to feed public schoolchildren.

Special corruption prosecutor Tania Sterling reported on a video released Sunday, April 15 that so far justices have not set a hearing date.

The case involves the purchase and distribution of grains with funds from the extinct National Aid Program (PAN).

According to the prosecutor’s investigation, an organized network operated by businessmen with links to the Martinelli administration was behind the scam as revealed in January 2015 by Rafael Guardia Jaén, who served as director of the PAN between 2012 and 2014, and who was detained in El Renacer jail in November 2014.

According to Guardia Jaén, the modus operandi was a supplier put together a package of three companies with respective offers. One of these companies met all the conditions to win the contract for the sale of lentils,  and beans.

The supplier presented three high priced quotes from the companies, and then submitted his own lower bid, which was sometimes more than double market prices.

Ex-president Ricardo Martinelli is under investigation for alleged involvement in another $46 million scam involving the purchase of beans.