Costa Rica information, activities and news
The Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad is putting some 100,000 cell phone lines up for use today to persons who already have submitted their names on the waiting list.
Among other items, those seeking a telephone line have to bring a telephone and the sales receipt for the device.
Experts have evaluated 1,087 homes in the Jan. 8 earthquake area and have pronounced 664 as being safe for habitation. But getting the occupants back home is going slowly.
More than 2,000 persons remain in shelters. Some are afraid to return home.
Meanwhile rescue workers are considering ending the search for seven persons who are missing. The Cruz Roja already announced that it was reducing its presence in the earthquake area.
Rescue workers have been digging in the landslides that buried buildings and people. But the danger of the work has been compounded by rain. The job is frustrating. For example, in the community of Cinchona, two persons are almost certainly buried under hundreds of tons of dirt at the scene of the destroyed eating place or soda El Mirador. But even heavy machinery has been unable to locate them. (more…)
A Montgomery County man has received an eight-year federal prison sentence for defrauding 39 friends, family members and others of more than $5 million in a Ponzi scheme involving construction projects in the Bahamas and Costa Rica.
Edward Ronald Schnable Jr. of Souderton pounced on vulnerable moments in the lives of his victims, including a widow, a retiree with a lump-sum pension, and people with medical problems looking for secure income, according to victims’ testimony Thursday at Schnable’s sentencing hearing.
Schnable, 47, ran his Ponzi scheme from 1995 through 2003, giving his victims promissory notes due in a year or two, with a “guaranteed” 10 to 14 percent return on the money. Instead, he used the money to live on and paid back some investors with money from new investors. (more…)
