Robert Richard King owned shares in Owl Securities and Investments, Ltd. (OSI), a business incorporated under the laws of the State of Nevada and having its principal place of business in Kansas City, MO. King helped OSI officials with the "Costa Rican Project" outlined below. Pablo Barquero Hernandez was a citizen of Costa Rica and worked as an agent of OSI in Costa Rica.
According to the allegations in the indictment, a few months after March 1997, King and Barquero joined with others to obtain a concession to develop the Costa Rican Project, which encompassed the construction, development, and operation of new port facilities on the Carribean coast of Costa Rica, as well as an international airport, a beach-front resort, a marina, residential estates, a quarry, a salvage operation, and a dry canal linking the new port to a port on the Pacific coast of Costa Rica. The conspirators had sent funds to Costa Rica to bribe officials of the Costa Rican government to obtain their support for the granting of the concession to OSI. The conspirators promoted the Costa Rican project and raised funds from investors, some of which were used to pay bribes to Costa Rican officials.
During the summer of 1999, some of the conspirators told cooperating witnesses and an undercover FBI agent who posed as potential investors or as intermediaries for potential investors that OSI had been heavily involved in the Costa Rican elections and that Costa Rican officials had been "taken care of." They explained to the cooperating witnesses that the payments to Costa Rican officials could not "come back to us" because OSI simply paid its attorney, an official in a Costa Rican political party, in Costa Rica, who then provided "incentive payments" to the Costa Rican officials. In January 1998, the Costa Rican government issued a letter of intent to OSI stating its support for the eventual issuance of a concession.
The conspirators also agreed to offer a large final bribe--the amount of which escalated over time and finally settled on $1,500,000--to Costa Rican officials that would be explicitly contingent upon the final granting of the concession. In conversations with each other and in proposals they circulated to potential investors, the conspirators characterized this bribe as a "closing cost" or "toll payment." The final bribe was never made.
Following an FBI investigation, King and Barquero were charged by the United States Attorney for the Western District of Missouri in a ten count indictment alleging (1) Conspiracy to Violate the FCPA, (2-8) Substantive Violations of the FCPA, and (9-10) Use of a Facility in Interstate and Foreign Commerce in Aid of Racketeering.
At trial, King was found guilty on five counts. King orally moved to dismiss the remaining counts, which the court granted. King was sentenced to 30 months in prison, 2 years of probation, fined $60,000, and ordered to pay a mandatory special assessment of $500. On December 15, 2003, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed King's conviction.
Barquero appears to remain a fugitive, and there is an outstanding warrant for his arrest. Costa Rica will not extradite its citizens.
