San Juan, Dec 24 (EFE).- A Puerto Rican businessman faces 18 charges, 12 of them for electronic fraud and 6 for money laundering, for embezzling public money to acquire a yacht and a house at a cost of 1 million dollars each. one.
The defendant, identified as Miguel Ángel Colón Molina, led a scheme to embezzle money from the Department of the Family of Puerto Rico and the NGO Good Morning Foundation, where he was president, treasurer and secretary.
This was reported this Saturday in a press release by the head of the federal prosecutor’s office in Puerto Rico, W. Stephen Muldrow, after a federal jury delivered the accusation on December 21.
According to the indictment, the NGO obtained a multi-million dollar contract with the Department of the Family to provide psychological and therapeutic services, recreational services, shelter, food, transportation, as well as medical services to children and families in residential areas.
Thus, between 2018 and 2019, Colón used millions of dollars of funds from government contracts for his personal use.
For this reason, he bought, in the name of the NGO, an 82-foot yacht valued at 1 million dollars and a residence of the same cost in an urbanization in San Juan.
“We will continue to aggressively prosecute those who commit fraud against government programs and deprive those children and families of those government assistance,” said the head of the US Attorney’s Office on the island, W. Stephen Muldrow.
For each of the 12 wire fraud counts, Colón faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison, and 10 to 20 years for each money laundering count. EFE
