WILLEMSTAD - Former Giro Bank director Eric Garcia must pay back more than 19 million guilders and otherwise serve a prison sentence of three years.
That was the demand of the Public Prosecution Service (OM) last week when handling the appeal in the Astro case, in which Garcia is again on trial for the misappropriation of funds in the bankruptcy of Banco Maracaibo.
At first instance, the former banker was sentenced to three years in prison in May 2019. After a brief detention, Garcia was allowed to go home on appeal while awaiting the hearing of his case, where he was placed under house arrest.
But there is no longer any question of house arrest, according to the Public Prosecution Service. If Garcia does not pay back the money he misappropriated, he will serve a three-year sentence. At the time, Garcia received permission from the court for house arrest because of his health.
Garcia, involved as a liquidator in the bankruptcy of Banco Maracaibo, transferred the money he had to manage to various foreign bank accounts. The money ended up with an investment firm in the United States, after which it was used to buy shares in the Giro Bank; the bank that Garcia was director of at the time. This happened without the knowledge and without the required permission of the examining magistrate in the bankruptcy of Banco Maracaibo.
When the examining magistrate began to question the state of the bankruptcy account, Garcia falsified two bank statements and prepared a false bankruptcy report to pretend that the $ 11 million was still in the account, when in reality there was only $ 11,000 left.
In May 2019, Garcia was sentenced to three years in prison for the embezzlement of $ 11 million in the bankruptcy of Banco Maracaibo. The former banker has appealed against this judgment; that appeal was treated last week.