Shock in Bolivia for the strange suicide of a bank controller: he fell from a 14th floor

The Bolivian authorities open an investigation into the death of a bank controller who apparently died after falling from a 14th floorin a case that has caused a stir in the country, the government announced on Sunday.

The body of Carlos Alberto Colodro He was found on Saturday evening at the doors of the Fassil bank, the bank in which the state intervened last month due to liquidity problems, said the government minister, Eduardo del Castillo.

The police removed the body and announced the start of the investigation.

Colombo, 52 years old, he was sworn in as comptroller of Fassil bank on 26 Aprilin order to return customer savings.

Colodro’s death was not slow to arouse suspicion. The family assured that a suicide does not make sense and they have called for a transparent investigation, Jorge Balda, a lawyer for the family, told the media on Sunday.

Balda explained that the inspector went to work in the building and that there were other people in the place who would be called to testify. He also ensured that Colodro did not leave a suicide note and that the family told him he was under a lot of pressure.

According to its website, Fassil bank was ranked fifth in the commercial banking sector in the country and had been operating for eight years. But it has suspended its debit and credit card services since April and has subsequently been unable to return deposits from hundreds of customers. Four of its top executives have been sent to prison preventively for financial crimes.

After the intervention, Fassil’s portfolio and savings were distributed among nine other financial entities and just last Friday Colodro announced that the bank’s assets would be sold starting Monday to cover debts with workers.

“Suspects” by Evo Morales

In statements to the radio station Kawsachun Coca, Evo Morales said he was “surprised” by the death of the controller of Banco Fassil, Carlos Colodro, and that this fact “raises a lot of suspicion” and called for “an independent and transparent investigation”.

Morales felt that the event shows that “there is no security” in the country and questioned whether the surgery was “so late”.

The former president recalled that President Luis Arce recently admitted that he had learned, when he was Minister of Economy in his government, of the irregularities in Fassil, but that “never” meant nothing to him.

“If the brother president already knew 2018 or 2019 and commented that there were irregularities (in the Fassil bank). That moment had to stop so that there were no similar (acts) of extortion (…) it is very serious “, he noted.

Morales also added on Twitter that “the relationship with the inspector’s unhappy death needs to be clarified with the alleged negotiation and possible money laundering” in Fassil.

And he asked that “security be provided to the journalists who are investigating this case and that it be determined if there are links with the media”.

The complaint

Upon learning of the inspector’s death, the journalist of the DTV television channel Júnior Árias, who disclosed the details of the operations to Fassil, communicated on his social networks his decision to “leave the country for a while until the death is cleared up” of the intervener.

“I, like many people, We do not believe that (Colodro) committed suicide, but that he was doing his job in relation to this case and discovering perhaps more than we know so far,” he said.

Colodro had his last public appearance this Friday to announce that from Monday start paying back wages to the workers of Banco Fassil.

Late last month, the government appointed a controller at Banco Fassil so that other financial entities can take over customer deposits and carry out account “migration” and other services.

ASFI attributed the Banco Fassil crisis to “bad practices of its managers and directors and, above all, of the irregular management of the commercial and entrepreneurial affairs of the members and managers of his corporate group”.

As a result, several of the company’s top executives have been prosecuted and are in prison.

Fasil’s crisis coincided with the lack of liquidity of dollars in the Bolivian financial system a couple of months ago.