Costly Security Team of the Fiscal Control Board
The security of the Fiscal Control Board (FCB) will be expensive for us. Even though the government pays for permanent bodyguards for two of their members, and the Puerto Rico Police Department mobilizes hundreds of their agents for each meeting or public hearing of the organism, the FCB maintains their own private Security personnel at a cost of $45,000. The contract is for six months.
Even though protests and civil movements against the proposed fiscal cuts were hardly new, the board imposed by PROMESA hired the company ESC Group, Inc. on December of last year to offer security services to the members of the Board.
The company costs are $7,500 monthly, plus all the reimbursements of additional costs for a six month term to coordinate, among other affairs, the security offered by the Puerto Rico Police Department.
This amount of money is added to the costs of the bodyguards assigned to the president of the FCB, José B. Carrión III and the representative of the Governor among the Board, Elías Sánchez.
Carrion III has an assigned Police escort that accompanies him 24 hours a day. It is composed by twelve officials divided in three schedules. Two black vehicles (Tahoe) sleep in front of the building where he resides in San Juan, as various NotiCel sources confirmed.
This digital media has verified that the Security assignments of Carrión III extend to taking him and his wife, both in casualwear, to buy food and supplies at the supermarket, a practice that judges, legislators and heads of agencies have been criticized for before due to these services being paid with public funds.
The decision of assigning this security team to the President of the FCB was taken last year, after a protest held at the office building of his company in Hato Rey, the superintendent of the Police, Michelle Hernández, explained.
At the closing of this edition, it was never explained the reason for assigning a bodyguard to Sánchez nor the total cost of security offered to the FCB. However, between January and March of 2017, the government had used $3.3 million on escorts for 11 public servants, according to official numbers from the Police.
'That was asked for by the previous governor, based on what had happened a year ago [when] protestors entered the building (of MCS, where Carrión has offices from the company Bay Boston). From then on the last administration decided to protect him', Hernández explained.
The Superintendent assured that the Police only offer security services to the FCB when there are public meetings to tend to traffic, manifestations and the security of the guests. A NotiCel source assured that there are also bodyguards services offered to the members of the FCB when they are in Puerto Rico.
According to a source from ESC Group, the company created by former federal agent Roberto Escobar Vargas has the responsibility of offering security services to the Board which include serving as a link with the Puerto Rico Police Department for the security of the members of the board, as well as with the federal authorities, when the board members visit American government facilities. ESC Group Inc. must also 'work with the intelligence community' to collect all the necessary information so that meetings in Puerto Rico of the Control Board go 'securely and without incidents'.
ESC Group, Inc. is an investigative corporation and security consultant organization created with the objective of providing security services, education, training, investigation and protection and executive security.
According to their website, ESC Group offers training in tactical defense with assault weapons and pistols, use of pepper spray and riot baton, use and management of Taser guns, arrest techniques and self-defense, quick response to active shooters, among others.
The company was created in 2012, but does not appear incorporated in the State Department until June 30 th of 2015, by the retired federal agent Roberto Vargas Escobar. The company also employs as a security consultant the exassociate superintendent of the Police under the administration of Luis Fortuño, José Luis Rivera.
Escobar Vargas works as the president and CEO of the company. He is a private investigator with 38 years of experience in the security field. In 2012 he worked as a special agent of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
He was chief of the federal sheriffs, correction officer and Municipal Police and in 1988 was part of the kidnapping operation team in the arrests in Honduras of drug dealer Juan Ramón Matta-Ballesteros linked with the murder in 1985 of the DEA agent, Enrique Camarena.
But it isn't only the contracts. The choice of offices of the FCB in the World Plaza in Hato Rey can be added to this security team for the members of the Board due to the extreme vigilance they have due to their offices being located in the Appeals Court and Court Administration building.