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QUITO – Brothers Roberto and William Isaias, former owners of a bank at the center of a 1990s financial meltdown that cost Ecuadorian taxpayers more than $8 billion, were sentenced in absentia to eight years in prison for embezzlement.The two men have been living in the United States since 2000, when courts in Ecuador first began looking into the collapse of Filanbanco, where Roberto was president and William held the post of vice president.Quito has begun the process of seeking their extradition and Interpol issued a Red Notice for the Isaias brothers last year.The Ecuadorian National Court concluded, based on an audit by PricewaterhouseCoopers, that the brothers falsified Filanbanco’s financial statements for 1998.Filanbanco was one of 30 banks that passed into government receivership in 1998-1999 amid the worst financial crisis in Ecuador’s history. Bank clients lost millions of dollars and the government spent more than $8 billion to clean up the mess.Besides the Isaias brothers, the National Court sentenced six other former Filanbanco executives to jail terms ranging from three to eight years.Five other defendants were acquitted.

Ecuadorian bankers Roberto and William Isaias, current fugitives, donated large sums of money to campaigns of U.S. politicians, the press revealed today. Reports underline that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is investigating cases that involve Congressional Republican Senator Marco Rubio, Democrat Robert Menendez and Republican Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, among other politicians. New York's NBC network told the FBI suspects that Menendez, through phone calls and recommendation letters to the Department of State and other bodies, helped the Ecuadorian brothers establish themselves in the U.S. in exchange for donations to his reelection campaign. Journalist and blogger Alberto Padilla claims he can confirm that, since they arrived to live in Miami, the Isaias have financed an active lobbying campaign against the Rafael Correa administration in Ecuador and have also aided senators, in exchange for being allowed to remain in the United States.

The Isaias were sentenced in absentia to eight years of imprisonment on April 11, 2012 by the National Court of Justice after a judicial process that lasted 13 years and in which 54 judges participated. In the Ros-Lehtinen case, the Daily Beast website assured that she recently received money from the former bankers in exchange for help. The Isaias had donated at least $23,700 USD to Ros-Lehtinen during the 2010, 2012 and 2014 electoral cycles, according to federal contribution campaign registers. The Isaias also contributed to the campaign funds of Florida's Senator Bill Nelson, and Congresswoman and also President of the National Democrat Committee Debbie Wasserman-Schultz and Representative Joe Garcia.