Costa Rica’s District Attorney Emilia Navas confirmed the detention this Wednesday, March 14 of five people in relation to the Cementazo corruption case, two employees of the company Sinocem and three managers of public bank Banco Popular.

11 raids were carried out by the police authorities in different areas of the country to gather evidence.

“Since 6 a.m. this morning four houses were searched, (three in Grecia and one in Tres Rios), also the customs agency Aeromar in Tibas, the shipping agency Transmares in Escazu and four agencies of Banco Popular”, confirmed Navas, the eleventh location was an office of Banco Improsa where the authorities were in search of a specific escrow contract.

The two employees of Sinocem (Juan Carlos Bolaños’ company) are of last names Rojas Segura and Cortés Zúñiga ; while the three executives of Banco Popular are of last names Bogantes Brenes, Gómez Barrantes and Alpizar Hidalgo.

There is a sixth man that has not been located of last names Delgado Negrini, Chief of Corportate Banking of Banco Popular.

According to information provided by the authorities the arrests obey to the investigation on the credit of U.S. $5 million that was granted, apparently under irregular circumstances, to Sinocem back in 2015.

It was Banco Popular that filed the report and requested the investigation for a possible fraud committed in prejudice of the banking institution.

Throughout the investigation of the Cementazo case it came to light that the group of companies belonging to Juan Carlos Bolaños (Grupo JCB) had presented the same cement import data to Banco de Costa Rica and Banco Popular to justify millions of dollars.

The detained men are accused of embezzlement and the District Attorney Office will request six months of preventive detention for each.