by Rod Hughes

Properties and bank accounts of former President Miguel Angel Rodriguez (1998-2002) were embargoed by the courts last week in an ongoing investigation into corruption charges. A court order embargoed those of Cristobal Zawadzki as well. Zawadzki is an expresident of the government insurance monopoly, INS.

Besides freezing the bank accounts in Rodriguez’s name, his salary as a professor at the University of Costa Rica was put under a lien. In all, the court-ordered liens totalled $2.1 million and involves four other public officials and their families, the daily La Nacion reported. Four properties and two cars belonging to Zawadzki and his wife were embargoed.

The investigation is a new twist on the ongoing probe of Rodrguez’s activities. He was already implicated in the investigation of the granting of cell phones to the French firm Alcatel. In this case, he is suspected of being involved in a Panamanian company allegedly receiving funds siphoned from INS through a British company, PWS Holdings.

The investigation stems from a report published by La Nacion in September of 2006. As reported by La Nacion today, the probe reveals that Rodriguez’s company and Zawadzki received a total of $1.4 million in payments from PWS between 1999 and 2002. Rodriguez’s lawyer, Rafael Gairaud, denies the ex-president is involved with the Panamanian company but a former member of the bearer share corporation, Rafael Sequierra, testified before prosecutors to the contrary in 2004.

According to PWS record, the actual amount totals some $2.1 million, since money was also paid out to ex-officials of INS as well as to one current employee. They were made, according to the newspaper, after Zawadzki asked for a raise in insurance premiums for another government monopoly, ICE, the electricity and telecommunications giant. Supposedly, PWS paid out money to the INS officials “for training and travel costs.”

The complicated web of payments testifies to the complex nature of the INS and Alcatel investigations and why it has taken so long to process the charges against Rodriguez.