Last week, we told you that the Ministry of Immigration has reported the embezzlement of hundreds of thousands of dollars to the police department for further investigation. And as we told you, it was the PM who was sitting at the helm of that ministry when the embezzlement started. So how was the culprit able to keep it going for so long? Today we spoke with the CEO at the Ministry, Tanya Santos who explained further:
Tanya Santos - CEO - Ministry of Immigration
"Yes, we have filed the police report already. On that situation, we used what evidence we have encountered from the preliminary investigation, and we have since filed a police report and expect that they will conduct a criminal investigation. We have also requested of the audit department for a full audit. They have committed to supporting us with that, and we're just working on the timing for that."
Reporter
"Would you be able to speak as to how something like that could occur? I'm not sure exactly when, but could you be able to tell us how something like that could occur? What would be the failures of the department along the way?"
Tanya Santos - CEO - Ministry of Immigration
"We encountered as far back as early 2025. The audit will be able to determine if it goes beyond that. Several factors. One is somebody just wanting to act criminally. First of all, you have to have that mentality, but we also have to look at the supervision that's taking place there and how strong that supervision has been. Also, training. We need to constantly be training officers on what they need to watch for, what they need to monitor, what they need to check regularly. How to work with difficult situations when it comes to financing and being on the top of your toes with that. Monitoring everything. It's a combination of factors."
Reporter
"We know that there's a chain of command. Everything cannot be left up to the CEO to monitor. Is there a probability that it could have been a ring of persons that executed this?"
Tanya Santos - CEO - Ministry of Immigration
"It's possible. For now, our preliminary investigation has identified for sure one person, but the audit and the criminal investigation will definitely take a deeper dive and spread further and find out if anybody else was involved."
Reporter
"How was it able to go on so long without the Prime Minister knowing? He was the former minister there, but how was it able to go on without him knowing?"
Tanya Santos - CEO - Ministry of Immigration
"Because we were expecting that everyone was doing their job, that the supervisors were supervising, that the cashiers and the cash supervisors were conducting their duties diligently. All these reports go to the Treasury Department. It's just a matter of expecting due diligence that you're doing your job."
