FBI in Puerto Rico investigating local officials 'withholding' crucial supplies

FBI agents in Puerto Rico have been receiving calls from "across the island" with residents complaining local officials are "withholding" or "mishandling" critical FEMA supplies -- with one island official even accused of stuffing his own car full of goods meant for the suffering populace. The accusations come in the aftermath of deadly Hurricane Maria, which devastated the U.S. territory last month. “The complaints we’re hearing is that mayors of local municipalities, or people associated with their offices, are giving their political supporters special treatment, goods they’re not giving to other people who need them,” FBI Special Agent Carlos Osorio told Fox News.

FBI in Puerto Rico investigating...

Well, it pains me to say that Trump might just be right here. If this is found to be true, I really hope these "officials" pay or their crimes.

a reply to: Excallibacca

he complaints we’re hearing is that mayors of local municipalities, or people associated with their offices, are giving their political supporters special treatment, goods they’re not giving to other people who need them

Sounds kind of like what we see on the US mainland as well. Another reason PR should become the 51st state!

Stay classy Puerto Rican officials... you've really outdone yourselves this time

a reply to: Excallibacca

So was ATS member marg6043:

originally posted by: marg6043
a reply to: conspiracy nut

I got the best source money can buy, my brother works for one of the agencies in the government.

The media will spin whatever they one, but will never report the truth.

Just like I said that the Major of San Juan la commandant wanted to be in charge of distribution of aid in San Juan over FEMA she is now doing just that, she is now creating her own center with donated relief supplies to give away to her people in San Juan to claim that she is been doing humanitarian work for her bid to the governors seat

The woman is a piece of trash and a politiquera.

Compare that to how Harvey relief was handled.

a reply to: Excallibacca


Fema refuses to help with distribution. There are severe logistic problems. I can't even imagine the prices people are being charged for a bottle of water, from some guy who was able to get to town, and is now selling water and toilet paper out of the trunk of his car!

a reply to: windword

Do you have any proof of this? I've heard everything from a longshoreman strike to there not being enough trucks. My Nephew is a helicopter pilot down there and they are slinging supplies under their aircraft to deliver them because the roads are so bad.

a reply to: windword

Call in the National Guard. Their logistics are top notch.

a reply to: jadedANDcynical

She has actually deferred aid to the towns that needed the aid more than they did. This is more fake news.

a reply to: JIMC5499

Proof isn't necessary.

It's not FEMA's job to drive supplies to people (no matter how Rachel Maddow tries to spin it so she can mention Trump). It's their job to coordinate for everybody. So, to be blunt, FEMA is "refusing" to do something that isn't their job to do in the first place.

What FEMA is doing is getting supply staging areas set up (their job), getting work crews to clear roads so that trucks can get down the road (their job), and getting helo crews to airdrop supplies to areas that can't get vehicles in (also their job).

a reply to: Excallibacca

Never let a disaster go to waste when political gain is to be had.

a reply to: Shamrock6

That's what I thought, I was just calling him out on it.

Totally expected in PR. A long time ago (about 20 years ago) I managed some financial networks down there. We had a circuit go down. Our technician guy we recently fired for holding equipment hostage in his house charging us a "storage fee". We never asked him to store anything in his home, but he would take newly shipped equipment from the data center to his home to "protect it from theft." So, we paid his fee and let him go.

In the meantime the circuit was down. Down for months and months. And then months. Working with AT&T Puerto Rico to resolve the issue was a joke as well. They would never test and always just say, "it is working." We then supposed we would send one of our own down there. Not so fast amigo, we were told that we needed to take a one week class on security in Puerto Rico before AT&T Puerto Rico would let us in their building. The class cost 2,000 US dollars.

Finally we were left to contact our old guy we canned to go in and fix it. He walked in the building and found the issue in 1 minute (it was unplugged) and then charged us 500 US dollars for that minute.

Basically that left me thinking that anyone that can control anything in that territory does so at some level of corruption. It seems that to get anything done, there has to be a payoff.

No wonder so many people do not want to live there.

Great place to visit though. San Juan is a really crazy party town.

a reply to: JIMC5499

I figured, but I was hoping to forestall getting a link to a Rachel Maddow video.

a reply to: Shamrock6

I didn't think of that. Sorry.

a reply to: JIMC5499

Trump’s FEMA said Not Our Job To Distribute Food And Water In Puerto Rico

FEMA Just defended their pathetic response to Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico! Helpless. Puerto Ricans are abandoned, insulted and left to die by the Donald Trump administration! FEMA claimed that its not their job to distribute food and water to the starving Americans.

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Rachel Maddow’s MSNBC Program reported that FEMA had yet to deliver any help to the residents of Aibonito, Puerto Rico, despite the fact that Maria hit three weeks ago! This community is just an hour away from the capital city San Juan and did not suffer from any blocked roads!
“Relief supplies are being delivered to regional staging areas and mayors are largely responsible for pick up and distribution,” FEMA officials told Maddow’s program.
Unfortunately FEMA did not offer any ideas as to how the mayor was supposed to manage such a widespread operation without electricity, cell phones, or the proper vehicles.
Less than 60% of Puerto Ricans have access to drinking water, and 85% of them have no electricity. “Residents (of Aibonito) celebrated because they thought our producers were from FEMA,” Maddow said on her program last night. “They were not from FEMA.”

FEMA has visited Aibonito three times, but only to help residents fill out applications for federal aid and once more to meet with the mayor to “identify the town’s needs and fill out a report.”
FEMA seemed to have no problem distributing food and water after Hurricane Harvey and Irma in the mainland. In Lakeland, FL, FEMA handed out free food and water at 11 different sites.

a reply to: JIMC5499

What did I tell you was gonna happen? Lol

a reply to: Shamrock6

It may not be their responsibility but couldn't there be exceptions made considering the lack of apparatus?

originally posted by: Shamrock6
a reply to: JIMC5499

I figured, but I was hoping to forestall getting a link to a Rachel Maddow video.

Are they really that predictable?

a reply to: Kali74

FEMA doesn't show up somewhere with a bunch of truck drivers in hand ready to go, though. That's the problem, and one that Maddow is ignoring. That's why FEMA says it's not their job.

What FEMA does is pickup the phone when a mayor says "I need X, Y, and Z, and I need it at locations A, B, and C." Then FEMA does whatever they can to ensure that X, Y, and Z are ready to go and, if the mayor can't send somebody to come and get it, FEMA tries to figure out how to get it to the mayor.

This all comes from the disaster response after Katrina. Everybody crapped on FEMA for trying to take everything over, so the plan that they came up with was to let locals decide what's needed and where it's needed, and then help them make it happen. FEMA doesn't have a bunch of guys waiting around with their thumbs up their butts refusing to drive trucks across the island.

FEMA has a lot of guys with thumbs up their butts, because it's a government agency. But that's a different thread.