A settlement has been reached in a whistleblower class action lawsuit brought against Hencorp Becstone Capital LC who is accused of making false statements and claims to the Export-Import Bank of the United States (Ex-Im Bank) in order to obtain loan guarantees.
The whistleblowers will receive $608,000 of the settlement.
The case, filed in February 2013, alleged that Ricardo Maza, a Peruvian-based former Hencorp business agent, created false documentation to obtain Ex-Im Bank guarantees on fictitious transactions on which no products were sold or exported, and that Hencorp acted recklessly by outsourcing key credit review functions to Maza without adequate supervision or oversight. The government alleged that Maza then diverted the proceeds of the loans to himself and to his friends and business associates in Peru, and that the transactions resulted in losses to the Ex-Im Bank when the loans were not repaid. In 2012, Mario Mimbella, 64, of Miami, Florida, the purported U.S.-based exporter on three of the fraudulent transactions, pled guilty to making false records for his participation in the scheme and was later sentenced to prison.
