The accounting administrator of the Spanish cooperation office in Panama, allegedly guilty of embezzling at least 4.5 million euros of funds in said office, was arrested in Colombia and brought to justice.
The Secretary of State for Spanish Cooperation, Pilar Cancela, this Tuesday morning before the Cooperation Commission of Congress, explained that Panama has already requested the extradition of the detainee, who is charged with misappropriation, falsification of documents and money laundering. of capitals.
The Public Ministry of Panama reported that the International Affairs Prosecutor’s Office “has not yet been notified of any apprehension of the named person.”
In this case, the Panamanian Omar Antonio Guevara Barrios, accounting administrator of the OTC between March 1992 and February 2020, is identified as the main person responsible.
Currently Guevara Barrios is one of the 100 Panamanians most wanted by the authorities through Official Letter #0502 of 04/02/2020 and is requested with an arrest and driving order, issued by the Metropolitan Prosecutor’s Office for Primary Care of Panama, referring to the possible crime against economic assets, in the form of theft with breach of trust. Guevara Barrios, according to reports on the Aecid office treasury, would have consisted of “the falsification of the signature of successive coordinators on innumerable checks charged to the different affected accounts”, as well as in the bank statements of the accounts.
[Video] Accountant arrested in Colombia who embezzled Spanish Cooperation in Panama
Apparently, the accountant of the Technical Cooperation Office (OTC) of the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (Aecid) in Panama had set up an operation to systematically issue more than 700 checks against said accounts, falsifying the signatures of the heads of the OTC , and made internal transfers between accounts to avoid overdrafts.
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Cancela explained that the Spanish government is “the first interested in clarifying it” and, furthermore, they have introduced absolutely more rigorous controls to prevent something similar from happening again, although Cancela insisted that it is “an isolated case, exceptional.” .
As explained by the Secretary of State for Cooperation, in February 2020 the unjustified absence of the accountant was detected and that the OTC bank accounts had “a balance much lower than what should exist”.
However, the case was not known until a year after it occurred, when in March 2021, the former Secretary of State for Cooperation and current number two of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ángeles Moreno, made it known in an appearance at parliamentary headquarters.
Reports from the Spanish government highlight that 1,720.94 euros would have been withdrawn from the cash box; while the affected accounts would be one of the ordinary operations of the OTC, from which 135,522.87 euros would have come; another to enter funds from the Andalusian Agency for International Development Cooperation (Aacid), from which 1,311,317.13 euros would have been taken; and a third related to the Cooperation Fund for Water and Sanitation (Fcas), from which 3,587,284.44 euros would have been extracted, which yields a total of 5,035,845.38 euros.
On October 28, 2011, the Council of Ministers of Spain approved the so-called “Drinking water and sanitation program in rural and indigenous areas of Panama with emphasis on local management” PAN-009-B, to which Fcas had to contribute 50% , this is 5.1 million euros ($6.8 million) and the other 50% goes to the Ministry of Health of Panama, which, through the Directorate of the Potable Water and Sanitary Sewerage Subsector, is also the executing entity of the program.
With information from EFE.
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