You don't need a hurricane to destroy Bay Islands infrastructure, damage businesses and threaten livelihoods. All that is needed is take a denunciations and an eager Fiscal convinced of a "crime in progress." Tropico Telephone and Internet (TTI), a company that took almost a decade to build, was taken down in a weekend.
Launched in 1997, this telephone and internet company had 1,400 telephone subscribers, but the bulk of its business was providing internet to Bay Islands and around 500 clients. TTI was only one of two internet providers on Roatan and an exclusive provider of internet to Utila and Cayos Cochinos. It provided internet to Municipals in La Ceiba, Utila, Roatan and phone service to La Ceiba police department.
For many Bay Islanders whether or not TTI committed any crimes in their telephone division is almost beside the point. They are concerned about the manner of which the government went after TTI, and if something similar could happen to them.
Even if TTI is found innocent of all charges, they are out of business anyway. In two days practically all their telecommunications equipment, infrastructure has been confiscated or damaged and their competitors are signing contracts with their disoriented customers.
The impact of the TTI shut down is hard to put in numbers and the ripple effect is hard to predict as the reputation of Bay Islands as a place to do business received a black eye. "I agree with the action, but I don't agree with how this was done," said Mitch Cummins, owner of Paradise Computers and a representative of Globalnet, competing with TTI ISP. "It raises concerns for companies like, or Globalnet, whether there is a due process."
TTI was accused of dumping illegal telephone traffic- reporting international calls as local and cutting out Hondutel from its share of the international phone call revenue. TTI has a Hondutel sub operator license, and became one of around 44 companies raided by Hondutel and fiscales in the last eight months. The results of the TTI raid had quite a different impact.
The police came into TTI's La Ceiba's offices on Saturday, January 6, during the company's annual shareholder's meeting. Charlie Powers, an American president of TTI with 25 years of managerial experience at IBM, was arrested. Powers declined to comment on the situation citing lawyer's advice.
Filling suspect's premises with dozens of heavily armed police, ripping of sockets from the walls, etc. was all standard procedure with dealing with the 'fly by night' Hondutel scammers. While it was a good show for mainland press, it quickly became obvious that the bust was different then others. The hell broke loose when well connected island businessmen cried foul and TTI asked for a Conotel, Hondutel's' controling body, ruling on the legality of the bust. It was not quite what Mauricio Chimirri, Hondutel's acting director expected.
According to Chimiri, the way TTI was shut down, was because of Honduras' criminal procedures, not because of Hondutel's wishes. "Unfortunately, the country's law don't allow for any company to take over operations of the facilities [of a raided company]," said Chimiri. In Honduran legal environment, the practice of taking over managing of raided companies could create suspicion on foul play and corruption. Hondutel would rather just shut everything down then run the risk of being accused of alternative motives.
According to Hondutel director, only with enterprises providing "primary needs" like energy, or water, the state would consider transferring management instead of straight forward shutting down and confiscations. There is no adjustment made based of geographical location of the area affected, or its economical impact on the area's economy.
According to Chimirri, of the closed down 44 pirate operations and were also ISP providers. "There were robbery of the state, we denounced them, and equipment was confiscated," said Chimirri.
After raids in La Ceiba, a chartered plane took Hondutel brass and fiscal against organized crime, Marcio Suniga Ernan, to Utila and Roatan where Hondutel raided more TTI offices and seized more equipment. Over the two days Hondutel employees went from site to site dismantling TTI's mostly ISP infrastructure.
"I called the Fiscal and asked if they could go a different way about it [shutting TTI down]," said Governor Arlie Thompson. "They said Fiscal explained that the dismantling of equipment meant to secure evidence of TTI committing crime."
The computer accounting files confiscated at the offices could prove TTI's guilt.. According to Jurgen Schaeffer, an independent sales man for TTI who was with the company from the beginning, the telecommunications equipment confiscated by Hondutel cannot be used as evidence as it has no pertinent information on calls made using Hondutel lines.
Hondutel's strategy was to act quickly, out of surprise, and take down as many key and valuable microwave transfer equipment as possible. They were able to confiscate TTI equipment in the French Harbour Yacht Club, Parrot Tree Plantation and Palmetto Bay.
Fiscal Suniga and Hondutel were taking advantage of a loop hole in the law allowing them to act without the judge's knowledge if a crime is in progress. The confiscated TTI equipment was to be used as evidence of the crime.
Gary Chamer, owner of Palmetto Bay Plantation never saw Hondutel coming. They signed in at the resort's gate and spent an-hour-and-a-half removing around $3,000 of telecommunications belonging not to TTI, but to Palmetto Bay. When Chamer realized what has happened, he drove to Hondutel office to take back his equipment. One of the several security guards hired by Hondutel pulled a gun and pointed it at Chamer. "This is not Nazi Germany. You don't invade someone's property and take their property away," said Chamer.
None of the Bay Islands politicians were informed of the raid and the action quickly rubbed Bay Islands businessmen the wrong way. "They came with three truck loads of heavily armed men, intimidated my guard and pushed through," said John Edward, owner of Parrot Tree Plantation.