Costa Rica’s $6 million Nationwide Financial institution heist was an inside job, authorities say

SAN JOSE, Costa Rica — Little by little an worker of Costa Rica’s Nationwide Financial institution took benefit of a surveillance blindspot to slide greater than $6 million value of foreign money into envelopes and casually stroll overseas’s largest financial institution, authorities stated Wednesday.

First introduced final month, it was the biggest financial institution heist within the nation’s historical past. Police carried out 11 raids and arrested eight financial institution officers Wednesday.

The three.3 billion colon (US$6.1 million) theft that apparently went unnoticed and unreported for weeks prompted a lot finger-pointing within the Central American nation.

There have been no lack of distressing particulars.

For instance, whereas one worker, a treasurer, took the money out of the financial institution, a number of others allegedly coated it up. Authorities are nonetheless attempting to find out in the event that they have been in on the theft or simply didn’t wish to take the blame when it was found the cash was lacking.

Additionally, the final bodily accounting of the financial institution’s money was made in 2019. And investigators are wanting into whether or not the financial institution’s authorized director issued an order to delay a report in regards to the lacking cash.

However maybe almost definitely to trigger head shaking bemusement was the allegation that a type of concerned all of the sudden started spending as a lot as $6,000 a day on lottery tickets.

“There was neglect on the a part of all the different officers,” Randall Zúñiga, director of the Judicial Investigation Division stated. “They didn’t sufficiently look into the truth that this individual was taking this cash. He was in a position to very casually depart with the envelope in his fingers, passing by the safety factors and there was no inner management.”

Legal professional Common Carlo Díaz stated extra investigation, together with reviewing suspects’ financial institution accounts, was vital to find out the position of others.