The Secretary of Economic Development and Commerce (DDEC), Manuel Laboy, separated from his duties three employees of the agency that were involved in the thymus that occurred against the Industrial Development Company (Pridco) and the Development Company and Export (CCE) and that could have resulted in the loss of about $ 2.7 million.
Similarly, Laboy requested that an examining officer investigate what happened inside the agency he directs, the role that the officers would have had, now separated from their duties, and requested the Office of the Inspector General to investigate what It happened and what to do so that the situation does not happen again.
Laboy did not specify whether employees were suspended from employment and salary and simply said that they do not have access to the agency’s financial systems while conducting rigorous investigations.
“The DDEC and Pridco systems were never compromised,” Laboy insisted during a press conference at the agency’s headquarters in Hato Rey.
Under the premise that there is an ongoing investigation, Laboy was not specific about the type of action taken against a Pridco employee and two CCE employees, who are presumed to have answered an email that would have served as a trap for Pridco and the CCE to transfer to a fraudulent account the remittance that the agency must provide for the payment of pensions.
In the case of Pridco, the transfer was $ 2.6 million on January 17 and in the case of the CCE, according to Laboy, the transfer would have been about $ 63,000.
According to Laboy, last month, there would have been a cyber attack or hacking of the Retirement Systems Administration (ASR) that had the effect of compromising multiple email accounts in that agency and that were allegedly used to request changes to the accounts where the ASR receives payments from the agencies.
Laboy invoked the existence of an ongoing investigation not to reveal whether Pridco learned of the fraudulent diversion of funds because he received a notification from the bank for that purpose and to reserve the name of the financial institution to which DDEC officials would have transferred the funds and where it is believed they were frozen by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to prevent their theft.
The official admitted, however, that although the transfer occurred on January 17, it would not have been until a few days ago when the FBI would have managed to freeze the funds.
Similarly, he noted that the investigation also examines whether the possible fraud could be “internal work.”
Asked by the press, about whether he would leave office, Laboy said all agency heads remain in their positions as long as Governor Wanda Vázquez Garced remains confident.
Yesterday, the president praised Laboy for paying attention to the scam the agency experienced and would now be among the cyber frauds – if it were the case – of greater amount than the government has experienced recently.
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