12 Police Officials Detained For Corruption, Including Chief of Policía Metropolitana
September 3rd, 2009 | by admin |A total of 12 police officials, including the chief of the Policía Metropolitana, were in the hands of judicial officials yesterday, all accused for taking money from criminals in exchange for favours.
Police chief Carlos León Retana is alleged to have headed the group of officials for more than 400 “cobronazos”, according to the director of the Organismo de Investigación Judicial (OIJ) – judicial police – Jorge Rojas.
The OIJ investigation labeled “manos sucias” (dirty hands) ended with the arrest of the 12 police officials and the naming of 77 other police officials in the OIJ report.
Rojas explained that it would have caused a nightmare in the Fiscalía (prosecutor’s office) if the OIJ had arrested everyone named in the report at one time, for such the arrests began in stages.
León is a career police officer with 19 years on the job. However, he was not the only high ranking officer, he is joined by Policía Metropolitana Norte and the chief of the Caribbean police delegation, both identified only by their last names, Serrano and Calderón, respectively.
Most of the officials arrested on Wednesday by the OIJ held rank in the police force.
The Policía Metropolitana unit is made up of 350 officers who patrol the downtown core of San José. The OIJ report indicates that one out of every four officers of the unit are corrupt.
The investigation began the middle of last year when rumours began that certain police officers were accepting bribes from local criminals to let them go, according to the ministra de Seguridad, Janina Del Vecchio.
A number of complaints were received against the officers which led the investigation to move ahead. Using undercover agents, the OIJ, confirmed that the rumours were in fact real and that local police officials were demanding bribes from criminals.
The evidence against the accused include video of police officials telling criminals to go about their activities with tranquility after making their payment, as well as evidence of drugs confiscated being resold by police officials.
The OIJ report shows that in some cases police officials were charging as low as ¢2.000 colones (less than us$4) to let a criminal go, and up to ¢200.000 colones to illicit businesses in the downtown core.
The ministera de Seguridad said that so far this year there have been 120 complaints of police corruption filed with her office and that up to five officers a week have been fired.
As to the Manos Sucias investigation, although only 12 were arrested, director Rojas assures that more arrests are pending.
