Editor’s note: The views expressed by guest columnists are not necessarily those of The Costa Rica Star, its advertisers, or its staff. 

The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Puerto Rico office is investigating numerous complaints of fraud throughout the U.S. Territory involving the distribution and mishandling of relief supplies following the double-barrel blast from Hurricanes Irma and Maria that struck in September.

Irma passed north of Puerto Rico while Category 5-Maria made a direct hit sending the island into darkness and despair.

At this point in time, an estimated 90 percent of Puerto Rico remains without electrical power while about 40 percent of residents have had water restored. Eighty percent of the island is still without cell-phone service. Some communities remain isolated due to roads and bridges being washed out, with access limited to government helicopters distributing basic relief supplies of clean water, food, diapers and medical necessities.

In response to the grave situation in Puerto Rico, the federal government has brought in thousands of federal workers and military troops to distribute more than 10,000 truckloads of relief supplies and counting, plus hundreds of electrical repairmen with cherry-picker trucks to reconnect the island’s electrical grid and restore power to homes and businesses.

From day one Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) officials have said they will stay in Puerto Rico for as long as it takes to get life on the island of 3.4 million inhabitants back to normal.

Unfortunately, it appears extremely dirty politics is getting in the way of relief efforts.

Corruption in Puerto Rico is nothing new.

Their government is awash in a sea of debt now estimated to be about US$70 billion. In just about everything Puerto Rico’s public officials do, they often think of themselves first and how they can pull off a scam, and benefit politically and monetarily from any given situation.

In a rare plea to the people of Puerto Rico, Special Agent in Charge Douglas Leff, out of San Juan’s FBI office, issued the following statement Thursday.

“The FBI has received numerous complaints of mishandling and misappropriation of emergency supplies provided by the federal government for the people of Puerto Rico, by local government officials. We are working to quickly determine any basis for criminal charges against any public official who would abuse their office and the people of Puerto Rico in this manner. In order to help us present all available evidence to federal and state prosecutors, anyone with information, pictures, recordings, or any other material that relates to this type of conduct is asked to call 1-800-CALLFBI.”

According to news reports, the alleged fraud and corruption seems to be connected to an outright attempt to discredit the Trump administration and turn the island’s continuing humanitarian crisis into backfiring on the president, and his teams at FEMA and the Homeland Security Department.

There is no doubt the population of Puerto Rica is suffering, but to add needless fraud and corruption to this level of despair is despicable.

Hopefully the FBI will find the culprits, make arrests and make examples out of them by convicting them in federal court in front of all their friends and co-conspirators. The situation in Puerto Rico now sounds like what happened in Haiti after their devastating earthquake a few years ago. Little of their relief aid pouring in from around the world actually made it to the needy people of Haiti.

President Trump has stated on Twitter that the USA and FEMA cannot stay “in Puerto Rico forever.” He also has been critical of Puerto Ricans for not doing enough to help themselves. The president’s comments may be unproductive and they have brought back a wave of criticism from Puerto Rico’s municipal mayors, including San Juan Mayor Carmen Cruz, who has been critical of FEMA’s response from the beginning calling their alleged inactions “genocide.” Her office, too, is under investigation for hindering the delivery of relief supplies, according to news reports.

As of now, the FBI is aware of five municipalities among Puerto Rico’s 78 municipalities where such activity is allegedly happening – San Juan, Arecibo, Patillas, Aguadilla and Vieques, according to news reports out of San Juan.

In an interview published Friday on Foxnews.com, San Juan FBI Special Agent Carlos Osorio said,

“The complaints we’re hearing is that mayors of local municipalities, or people associated with their offices, are giving their political supporters special treatment, goods they’re not giving to other people who need them. The U.S. attorney has made it clear if anyone is caught mishandling FEMA supplies; they will be prosecuted and could end up facing anywhere from five to 20 years in prison.”

Osorio went on the say that some of the accusations have come by phone while others have poured in over social media, but the allegations stretch across the island. He told of one allegation where a party official is accused of pulling his own car around the back of a government building and driving off after loading it full of FEMA supplies.

“They’re supposedly withholding these goods and these supplies and instead of handing them out to people who really need them, there are claims that local officials are assigning them to their buddies first – people that have voted for them or people that contributed to their campaigns or what not …

“We’re going out and investigating these claims,” Osorio said. “We don’t know yet if they’re accurate or not…but yes we have received many similar allegations from people in many different parts of the island … We’ll distribute the goods and supplies because we have to follow certain protocols, and that’s what local officials said they were doing, when they were waiting for federal officials to leave, and the allegations are they are handing relief out through back doors and stuff like that to their buddies.”

One voice speaking out about Puerto Rico’s entrenched corrupt ways is the Conservative Tree House, an on-line publication that posted this editorial on Thursday.

“The CTH has noted on several occasions that many of Puerto Rico’s 78 municipal authorities control their regions in a similar fashion to mafioso families. There is a tremendous amount of corruption within the ranks of ‘mayors’ on the island. The entire system of governance is more accurately similar to third-world overlords … This report on FEMA aid being corrupted by these same officials does not come as a surprise; indeed, unfortunately, it is the norm – not the exception.”

This culture of corruption only adds insult to injury, contributing greatly to the ongoing misery of millions of people made worse by thieves who call themselves public servants and falsely blame everyone else for their own misdeeds. I say, lock them up!

 

About the Author

Britt Nelson relocated to Costa Rica in 2011 from Florida, where he served as news editor for the Palatka Daily News, a newspaper owned by the New York Times Regional Newspaper Group (NYT-RNG) for 20 years.

Nelson served the NYT-RNG for 18 years in Tennessee, Kentucky, Virginia, North Carolina and Florida as a correspondent, reporter, staff writer, senior staff writer training new reporters, copy editor, page designer, editorial writer, editorial page editor and editorial board member.