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Document destruction, falsification and obstruction involved, FBI says about San Juan raid

By on October 16, 2018

SAN JUAN – Douglas Leff, the special agent in charge of the FBI’s San Juan Division, said Tuesday there was destruction and falsification of documents as well as obstruction of justice involved in the agency’s raid of the capital’s Purchasing Division offices at the Municipal Tower of the Municipality of San Juan.

“There are a lot of documents here, but we think there are other documents that should be here and they are not. We have information that they took documents from here to another place, but at this moment we do not have enough information to corroborate it,” Leff told the press.

“Therefore, we request the cooperation of the public, of whoever knows the location or the extraction of documents to another place. Please contact us at 787-754-6000 or via the tips.fbi.gov portal,” he added.

The FBI director said the fraud investigation follows a referral from the office of Comptroller Yesmín Valdivieso. Agents searched floors 3, 4, 14 and 15 of the municipal tower, and confiscated documents and computers.

San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz had confirmed the raid, tweeting, “At this moment members of the FBI are intervening in the Municipal Tower of San Juan. My instructions as always are of total collaboration. I do not have more information at this time. We all have the duty to collaborate to clarify this situation.”

In an afternoon statement, the mayor said, “I reiterate to the municipal employees that they have a duty that all their actions are legal, moral and ethical. In addition, it is their responsibility to use all the mechanisms available, in the event that they believe that they must submit any information, to do it internally and / or externally.

Any employee who has not fulfilled their duty or who has not complied with the rules and regulations, after the due process that corroborates such actions, will have to face the consequences.”

The FBI’s San Juan Special Agent in Charge Douglass A. Leff (CyberNews)

Leff told the media earlier that the FBI had “a search warrant from the Federal Court,” and that “We are going to take computers, electronic records, documents. I think we’ll be here all day.”

He added that there are several “different investigations, but this one is particularly related to a judge with a federal order that has just signed it. We are working for a little while with the Comptroller of Puerto Rico and there is information from [her] Division that we are using to obtain this order.”

FBI spokesman Carlos Osorio said in a radio interview (WKAQ) earlier as well that “there are several floors we have to search. There are more than three. I cannot tell you the exact number but I know it’s more than three. It has to do with allegations of fraud and favoritism regarding purchases.”

He said there are were no arrests and that the order is to locate documents or electronic files.

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