WBC Boxing News: Garcia’s Family Trust At Risk

The World Boxing Council has received a plea for help from Maria Maza of Barranquilla, Colombia, the widow of former Colombian boxer Jimmy Garcia, who passed away in 1995 after challenging Gabriel Ruelas for the super featherweight world title at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas.

The WBC protects all boxers fighting for WBC titles with hospitalization and life insurance policies, and after that terrible evening when Jimmy Garcia died, the money from the life insurance policy was collected through a bank transference which required the presence in Colombia of WBC President Dr. Jose Sulaiman, who established a trust whose beneficiaries would be Garcia’s children Lizeth Estefania Maza Ruiz, Paula Andrea Maza Ruiz, and Jimmy Masmut Villalba, as well as their mothers, Maria Maza and Alba Luz Masmut.

The trust has apparently been mismanaged, and the two widows have decided to file a lawsuit against the fiduciary through the Chamber of Commerce in Barranquilla, as stipulated by the respective agreement that establishes that in case no solution is reached, the case should go to arbitration.

The case will be litigated by lawyer Gloria Meneses Perez against Fiduagraria, the fiduciary which apparently has not handled the trust in a professional manner. The interest accrued by the trust is apparently going to people other than those legally appointed as beneficiaries.

The WBC hopes that the world of boxing joins in to help these unfortunate victims, and bring justice to this unfortunate matter.

WBC Secretary General Gabriel Penagaricano and WBC representative in Colombia Julio Torres have been very active for more than two years trying to resolve the problem and avoid litigation, but the money has simply been disappearing from these poor widows and children.