WILLEMSTAD – Former banker Eric Garcia, 86, has been ordered back to prison after failing to repay millions obtained through fraud. The Public Prosecution Office (OM) has begun enforcement of a substitute prison sentence of three years. 

Garcia is required to repay a total of NAf 19,185,000 to the government, an amount imposed in a separate asset forfeiture case following his earlier criminal conviction. He was previously sentenced to four years in prison for embezzlement, document forgery, and money laundering. 

Both sentences became final on July 12, 2022, when the Supreme Court of the Netherlands dismissed his appeal. 

The court found that Garcia, as a court-appointed curator, embezzled funds under his control, falsified financial documents, and knowingly used those falsified documents. Despite his advanced age and medical condition, which had allowed him to initially serve his sentence at home, the failure to repay the court-ordered amount has now triggered his re-incarceration. 

Garcia, the former director of the now-defunct Girobank, will serve the full three-year substitute sentence unless the debt is paid in full.