This Saturday, November 5 the San José court sentenced Costa Rican businessman Juan Carlos Bolaños, president of SINOCEM and six executives of public bank Banco de Costa Rica who were all detained yesterday in relation to the “Cementazo” corruption case, to three months of preventive prision detention at the San Sebastián prison in San José which inmates describe as “hell on earth”.

The resolution dictated by the judge came after a hearing that carried on for 18 hours, during which the Attorney General had initially requested six months of preventive detention and additional precautionary measures; parties presented their evidence and testimonies.

Bolaños is being charged with embezzlement, influence peddling, criminal simulation and false accusation, while Mario Barrenechea, former General Manager of Banco de Costa Rica; and the other five members of Banco de Costa Rica linked to the Credit Committtee, Marvin Corrales Barboza, Andrés Víquez Lizano, Leonardo Acuña Alvarado, Gilberth Barrantes Campos and a man with last names Ramírez Rodríguez are all facing investigations for embezzlement.

The defense attorneys presented an appeal immediately after the judge dictated the resolution; Juan Marcos Rivero who is representing Bolaños, stated to La Nación, that the judge had “messed up”, “She based the resolution on evidence that was not brought to the hearing”; however, the file has to be transferred to the appeals court which doesn’t work weekends, therefore they will have to wait until Monday for a resolution to the appeal.

Juan Carlos Bolaños, president of JCB group and Sinocem (a company created to import cement from China) is being investigated due to a loan that was given to Sinocem for an amount close to US$30,000,000.00 to import cement from China. The problems are the conditions under which this loan was given, for instance, the loan had as guarantee the cement itself, which is a product that has a short life cycle, this same cement was also offered as the guarantee in another loan Bolaños requested with Banco Popular. On top of that, out of the $30 million that BCR transferred to the cement provider in Hong Kong, reportedly only $10 million in cement entered the country and $7.5 million was returned to accounts of Sinocem in Costa Rica at Cathay Bank and Banco Nacional. Through the extensive investigation that has been carried out, it has been demonstrated that Bolaños had friends in very high places.

Mario Barrenechea, the former General Manager of BCR and the five other members of Banco de Costa Rica, are being investigated for apparently facilitating the credit and giving benefits to Bolaños and his companies while ignoring requirements and regulations.