A proposed law to build a sewer system for the San José area using a loan from the Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC) took a step forward yesterday when National Water and Sewer Institute (AyA) president Ricardo Sancho sent it to the Executive Branch’s Inter-Institutional Coordination Office, according to AyA spokeswoman Maritza Alvarado.

The office, led by Coordination Minister Marco Vargas, is reviewing the bill — which proposes using a $127 million loan offered by the Japanese bank to build a waste-water treatment plant in the San José metropolitan area – and is likely to send it to the Legislative Assembly, according to Casa Presidential spokeswoman Eugenia Sancho.

“I think this is a project everyone will be agreement with,” Sancho said. “The question is when it will be sent to the Legislative Assembly.”

AyA has been working with the Japanese bank on the proposed sewer project since 2003. The bill, the first to be sent to the Executive Branch since President Oscar Arias took office May 8, states that the first phase of the plant would be completed in 2013 and the second phase in 2025, according to a statement from Casa Presidencial.

The Japanese loan, to be paid back over 25 years, has a seven-year grace period and “one of the best interest rates of these types of loans.” The rate was not disclosed, however.

The Arias administration has suffered its first casualty.  Samuel Schactel Cawer, a businessman who was sworn in last week to the board of directors of the country’s petroleum monopoly, has resigned under pressure.

The minister of the Presidencia, Rodrigo Arias Sánchez, asked for the resignation when the Partido Acción Cuidadana announced that Schactel had a full administrative power of a company that was in arrears with the Caja Costarricense de Seguro Social.

The new board of directors of the Refinadora Costarricense de Petróleo was sworn in May 17. Among them was Schactel. The issue came up in the Asamblea Legislative, and the man’s resignation was announced almost immediately.

Schactel was quoted as saying that the company involved has been in a form of bankruptcy for years and he had no authority there but that he resigned for the sake of the Óscar Arias administration.

Two top law enforcement officials will be in Washington, D.C., today for a session with the U.S. attorney general.

The reason given locally for the trip is so that Costa Rican officials can accept praise at a press conference because of their participation a week ago in the arrest for five persons here suspected of running a fake lottery scheme by telephone targeting U.S. citizens.

Francisco Dall’Anese Ruiz, the fiscal general or the nation’s top prosecutor, and Jorge Rojas Vargas, director of the Judicial Investigating Organization, are the two men who will be in Washington, according to a note from the Poder Judicial.

U.,S. Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzalez is expected to lead the press conference to discuss what the U.S. Justice Department is calling Operation Global Con, a multinational effort to combat fraud in the marketplace.

Officials here said the fake lottery operation took in $20 million dollars. Some 17 raids were conducted May 16, 10 of them in San José. The locations include homes serving as call centers and residences.  Three U.S. citizens were arrested, as were two Canadians, More than 200 Costa Ricans worked in the call centers. They pretended that the persons they called, mostly the elderly, had won a lottery and encouraged them to send money here for “taxes” and “fees.”

The raids here were directed by Dall’Anese and Rojas.

The collaboration with Costa Rica could be the start of additional efforts to stamp out
scammers here as well as target the online betting business.

Last week in Washington, the U.S. District Court unsealed an indictment against three individuals and two firms, Soulbury Ltd. and WorldWide Telesports, Inc., alleging the laundering of an estimated $250 million worth of Internet gambling wagers,

The justice Department said the indictment underscores its commitment to attacking illegal Internet gambling concerns by using federal anti-money laundering laws.

The defendants and their business BetWWTS.com is regulated by the Gaming Commission of Antigua and Barbuda. They do exactly what sportsbooks in Costa Rica do.

The Justice Department said the firm accepted bets in Antigua from the United States on sports events. “Soliciting such wagers over the Internet violates the Wire and Travel Acts,” said the department. “The indictment also alleges that by causing funds to be sent from places within the United States to places abroad with the intent to promote Wire and Travel Act violations, [the defendants] engaged in a money-laundering conspiracy.”

Money-laundering allegations have a stronger bite than gambling allegations because gambling is legal in many places outside the United States. Money laundering allegations allow U.S. officials to freeze foreign bank accounts.

In addition, money laundering allegations allow the United States to extradite suspects, because the charge is considered a crime nearly everywhere. Countries will not extradite suspects if the allegation is not a crime in the host country.

By the A.M. Costa Rica staff   President Óscar Arias Sánchez says it is indispensable that the nation triple its estimated $600 million a year in foreign investment.

“We have to construct what we have left undone for many years,” said the president. “Costa Rica has to be more attractive,” he added, noting that a great weakness for the country is the infrastructure. He called for more hotels.

The president also called enlarging and remodeling the Daniel Oduber Quirós airport in Liberia an urgent need. He said the airport attracts 130 executive jets a month but due to lack of space the planes have to go elsewhere.

The president was speaking at the Hotel Real Intercontinental in Escazú where plans for the Complejo Turistico Azulera in Bahia Brasilito, Guanacaste, were presented. Part of the project will be the Hyatt Regency Azulera Resort & Spa, which will begin to be constructed in July with the first phase projected to be completed in 2008. The entire project is estimated at $200 million.

By Amanda Roberson  - Tico Times Staff
About $1 billion will be spent to repair 1,500 kilometers of Costa Rica’s highways in the next three months, according to a statement released yesterday by the Public Works and Transport Ministry (MOPT).

The ministry is already working on roads in the Central Valley provinces of San José, Heredia and Cartago, using asphalt produced at the only functioning plant in La Colima, Tibás, north of San José, said MOPT spokesman Omar Segura.

Negotiations are also under way with the ministry’s National Roadway Council (CONAVI) to establish up to four asphalt plants in other parts of the country where roads are in dire conditions, such as the northwestern province of Guanacaste. MOPT hopes to have this agreement with CONAVI in place and begin work on roads outside the Central Valley within the next month.

Asphalt must be at least 100 degrees Celsius to be used to fill potholes and make other road repairs – cooler temperatures cause it to lose its impermeability, leaving it subject to destruction by rain. This has made it impossible to transport asphalt from the Tibás plant to other parts of the country, the statement said.

The possibility of renting or buying a new plant for the Central Valley so that the Tibás plant could be moved to the Northern or Southern Zone is also being evaluated, and existing plants in Guanacaste and the Caribbean slope town of Turrialba are being repaired and improved. The ministry expects them to be producing asphalt for these areas by the end of this year.

Pedro Castro, vice-minister of Public Works and Transport, called the effort a “short-term solution to national roadway problems” and added that the approval of 22 contracts for highway improvements being studied by the Comptroller General’s Office would provide a more lasting solution to the country’s road woes.