198 to trial for “debauchery that hit the treasury”

The first judge to liquidate criminal cases, Agueda Rentería, argued that the prescription of the criminal action decreed in favor of 337 people in the case of irregularities in the economic compensation to owners of red devil-type buses, occurred due to the slowness in the processing of the case. This statement is contained in Mixed Order No.10 of December 12, 2022, with which Rentería opened a criminal case and decided to prosecute 198 defendants.

In the document, Rentería warned that “the statute of limitations implies impunity for a crime that caused a significant patrimonial damage to the State.” However, she acknowledged that this investigation involved many people and therefore required multiple steps.

Regarding the 198 investigated who will be prosecuted, she stated that the investigation carried out by the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office showed that the Transit and Land Transportation Authority (ATTT) never had a record of all the red devils that operated in the capital and San Miguelito. She added that this lack of control “caused a debauchery that hit the treasury.”

According to Rentería, the State paid “in excess” to bus owners who did not even provide the transportation service. She also recognized that there was a lack of action by the ATTT and the transport organizations, who had to act ex officio in the face of irregularities in the compensation process.

Among those called to trial, there are 79 officials who worked in the ATTT, inspectors of the Comptroller’s Office and the Secretariat of Goals of the Presidency, and legal representatives of public transport service providers. In this group are,  the former directors of the ATTT Jorge Ricardo Fábrega, Marcos Mora, Ventura Vega, and Roberto Moreno.

Among the evidence valued by the court is a visual inspection carried out by the prosecutor’s office at the premises where the already compensated buses were received. The place is located in Howard, in the western area of the capital, and there it was detected that some of the vehicles were painted with a brush with the intention of adopting the colors used by the red devils that did qualify for compensation. They also found superimposed stickers to hide the tracks of different transportation routes and altered operating certificates.

Judge Rentería also valued the audits of the Comptroller General which established that there was a patrimonial injury of $24 million. The Comptroller’s investigation also revealed that there was an increase in the fleet that provided the transportation service through the South and North corridors and that quotas were assigned with the sole intention of compensating bus owners, even if they did not provide the service.

The trial must begin on September 1, 2023. and will run until September 29. An alternate date is for October 9 to December 7.

In this case, the anti-corruption prosecutor had requested the summons of 541 people to trial.