FBI Arrests Puerto Rico Public Firm’s Treasurer

12/5/2014

FBI Arrests Puerto Rico Public Firm’s Treasurer SAN JUAN – The FBI on Wednesday arrested the treasurer of the Puerto Rican public firm that maintains the island’s highways and public transportation system, a company that is on the verge of bankruptcy and that has accumulated debts amounting to some $7 billion. Silvino Cepeda Ortiz, the financial officer for the federally funded Highways and Transportation Authority, or ACT, was arrested on the orders of federal Judge Sylvia Carreño Coll, who charged him with accepting illegal payments from three companies that regularly received contracts from the ACT. Cepeda is also accused of demanding bribes from firms with which the ACT worked in exchange for providing assorted services. “The public officials who abuse their positions of trust for their personal financial benefit undermine the integrity of our public entities and the availability of federal funds destined to finance important projects, such as our highway infrastructure,” said the head of the federal prosecutor’s office on the island. She added that she will not cease her efforts to combat the type of corruption uncovered in the ACT, whose executive director, Javier Ramos Hernandez, confirmed in a communique Cepeda’s arrest and his immediate suspension from his post. “We will not tolerate acts against the public interest,” said Ramos. Cepeda served in various posts within the finance and budget office since joining the ACT in July 2000 and he had been the firm’s treasurer since July 2012.

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