The arrest of the mayor of Limón, Néstor Mattis Williams, occurred on Thursday morning by the Judicial Investigation Agency (OIJ) and the Prosecutor’s Office and the Public Ministry began to process a possible request for precautionary measures against the Criminal Court of the Atlantic Zone.
Next to him, the engineer of the Municipality of Limón, Antonio Babb, was also arrested, who would have known all the processes of investment and management of public monies that are investigated for alleged irregularities.
The capture of Mattis comes from an investigation for apparent embezzlement of funds in the construction of the central market of Limón, for which, according to the evidence, the mayor’s office turned more than ¢3500 million , but the works have not been finished to this day.
One of the key points was obtaining evidence in the construction firm Grupo Himalaya.
CRHoy.com announced, after an interview with the lawyer of the company Javier Artavia, that the Limonense Mayor’s Office had requested in different council sessions the modification of the works table of the market construction project due to “lack of budget”.
The total amount of offset is greater than ¢ 1 billion, money for which the Public Prosecutor initiated the investigation process to establish the final destinations.
Of the ¢ 2600 million corresponding to the tender, which was obtained by G rupo Himalaya in 2015, they received only 14% of remuneration, that is, about ¢ 390 million.
Finally, the notifications by the municipality began, in which they informed about the lack of budgetary content.
It should be noted that the project was divided into two stages, the first, the new market building, and the second, the Maxwell ring, which consists of the oldest part of the central market, declared national historical and architectural heritage in 1998.
In each council session, the engineer Antonio Babb was present agreeing on the modifications that Mattis, as mayor, made.
crhoy.com