Brit Jailed for Bribery

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A British court has handed down a stiff sentence to a former insurance agent for bribery of Costa Rican officials of the National Insurance Institute (INS) and power and light company ICE, both government monopolies at the time.

Southwark Crown Court found Julian Messent guilty of paying out 41 bribes of nearly $2 million between February 1999 to June 2002 for contracts with INS and ICE. Costa Rican courts have been investigating 10 officials here for a year connected to the bribes but so far no dates are set for trial.

The probe by the British Serious Fraud Office (SFO) began in 2002. Messent, sentenced to 21 months in jail and required to pay the Costa Rican government $160,000 damages within 28 days or find an additional year tacked on to his sentence, is former CEO of PWS International, a London-based reinsurance operation.

According to testimony, Messent deposited his bribes into the private accounts of wives and affiliates of INS and ICE executives. According to SFO, the money went into the bank accounts of Roxana Cordero, wife of INS agent Alvaro Acuña amd Reska Financial Inc., affiliated with another INS agent, Cristobal Zawadski, along with other recipients.

On Thursday, the leading newspaper La Nación published a categorical denial by ICE president during the 1999-2002 period, Rafael Sequeira, that he received any money from PWS.

During the Crown Court trial, prosecutor Hodge Malek charged that Messent paid the money to retain reinsurance contract U-500 to protect INS up to $300 billion at an annual cost of $13 million. SFO charged that Sequeira received $706,000 from PWS.

SFO investigators further told the court that PWS paid out $796,000 and $479,000 to former INS president Zawadski and Acuña, respectively.