Sexy escorts from Costa Rica and Chile are at the center of a financial scandal exposed by Honduran news outlets such as El Heraldo and reported in nearby El Salvador by La Pagina. It all started when a beautiful and well-known model from Honduras was alleged to have swindled her country’s Social Security coffers in excess of $435,000. The September 2^nd headline in El Heraldo reads: Sex and Greed Behind the Millionaire Scam of the Honduran Social Security Institute (Spanish initials: IHSS).

 

According to El Heraldo, it all started when millions of lempiras (hundreds of thousands of United States dollars) were said to be missing from the balance sheets of the IHSS, a government entity that manages welfare projects and pensions in Honduras. Upon closer scrutiny, it was determined that “prepagos” from Costa Rica and Chile were involved in a complex flimflam that involved sexual favors and money laundering performed for the benefit of IHSS public officials.

 

Prostitutes and Money Couriers

In Latin America, the term “prepago” is often used to describe women who discreetly engage in prostitution. The term literally translates to prepaid, although a money exchange does not necessarily have to take place before the sexual act. In Brazil, the Portuguese term “garota de programa” (timetable girl) is more accurate than prepago in Spanish. What takes place beforehand is an agreement of terms such as date, time, place, and consideration. In essence, when prepagos are involved there can be some expectation of a verbal or electronic contract, as opposed to acts of prostitution that more spontaneously take place in brothels, discos, nude cabarets, or at street corners.

 

The prepagos allegedly involved in the IHSS affair show a record of traveling from Costa Rica and Chile to Honduras and staying at a swanky apartment in Colonia San Ignacio, where frenzied orgies would supposedly take place over three days. The money laundering allegations purport that the Tica prepagos also acted as money couriers, transfering IHSS funds to their Chilean colleagues, who would in turn fly to South America and launder the money through real estate investments.

 

El Heraldo further reports that the attractive call girls were instructed to always carry less than $10K when crossing international borders for the purpose of “structuring” a method to conceal money laundering activity by avoiding certain triggers. An interesting aside in this story is that lingerie models in Costa Rica who earn a living on the “pasarela” circuit (a raunchier version of a Victoria’s Secret fashion show) are often rumored to travel to Guatemala, Mexico and the United States to explore lucrative prepago opportunities camouflaged as modeling contracts and fashion shows that never materialize.