QCOSTARICA – Being a director of the most powerful bank in the country, the state bank, Banco Nacional (BNCR), does not give permission to carry a firearm around the international airport.
That was the case of Olman Briceño Fallas, arrested on Friday at the Juan Santamaría airport, when he tried to board a flight while carrying his weapon.
The arrest was made at 11:30am when a x-ray security check uncovered a loaded SIG-Saur P226 in Briceño’s carry-on, according to Glen Pacheco Araya, head of the Airport Police.
Briceño was licensed to carry weapons but his permit had expired in 2011. Worse, the gun was not registered to him but to another person.
Quick Justice
By 1:30pm Friday, Briceño was charged for the illegal possession and carrying of a weapon without a permit, confirmed prosecutor Edwin Retana, of the Fiscalía Adjunta de Alajuela.
By Friday night, the Alajuela Flagrancy Court (Tribunal de Flagrancia de Alajuela) accepted a plea bargain, ordering Briceño to 200 hours of community work over the next two years, a donation of ¢500.000 colones in equipment to the Ministry of Public Works and Transport (Ministerio de Obras Públicas y Transportes – MOPT), maintain a fixed address and not to carry weapons for the two years.
Roberto Mendez, director of security of the bank, directing his comments to the Alajuela Court, explained that the director had been in San Carlos on bank business, in meetings and mistakenly brought the firearm with him to the airport.
“By mistake last night (Thursday) he put the gun in his computer case, because he left a meeting late, leaving early from San Carlos to San José (Friday morning) the grabbed his computer case and left for the airport,” said Mendez.
(Via nacion.com)
Briceño was appointed a director of the BNCR by the government of Luis Guillermo Solís on June 3, 2014.
