More bad news for the inept government of Puerto Rico and this one is quite embarrassing. The island is bankrupt and fending off vulture capitalists while it’s falling apart infrastructure can barely keep up.
The U.S. aid sent by Trump’s administration gets discovered unused and many people on the island are accusing the government of outright fraud or worse, simple incompetence.
Many former officials were arrested in a shakedown scheme by U.S. attorneys – in short, the place is a mess run by people who don’t know what they are doing.
And now comes this: Puerto Rico’s government just confirmed it lost more than $2.6 million on an online email scam.
The Associated Press reported that the finance director of the island’s Industrial Development Company, Ruben Rivera, said in a complaint filed to police Wednesday that the agency sent the money to a fraudulent account.
Rivera claimed that the government agency transferred the money on Jan. 17 after receiving an email that alleged a change to a banking account tied to remittance payments, according to a police statement.
Manuel Laboy, executive director of the agency, told The AP that officials found out about the incident earlier this week and immediately reported it to the FBI.
“This is a very serious situation, extremely serious,” he said. “We want it to be investigated until the last consequences.”
Laboy refused to say how officials found out about the scam, whether anyone has been dismissed or how the company’s operations have been affected by the missing funds. He said, however, that an internal investigation is under way to determine whether someone was negligent or did not follow standard procedure, adding that government officials are trying to recover the money.
“I cannot speculate about how these things might happen,” he said, addressing heavy criticism from Puerto Ricans who were incredulous upon hearing the news.
