Over 500 Dominican Police, Soldiers Dismissed for Drug Ties in 5 Years

Over 500 Dominican Police, Soldiers Dismissed for Drug Ties in 5 Years - InSight Crime | Organized Crime in the Am?ricas

(insightcrime.org) ? More than 500 Dominican officials have been purged from the country?s police and military in the last five years for ties to drug trafficking groups, a worrying sign for the island as it appears to be growing in importance to traffickers.
Between 2007 and 2012, 516 police and military officials were dismissed from their jobs for helping drug smugglers, according to Hoy newspaper. The majority came from the national police and air force, followed by the army and marines.
A number of the arrested officials were caught attempting to transport narcotics at docks, ports, and border crossings with Haiti. More than 100 had been working with the country?s Specialized Airport Security Corps (CESA).
According to Hoy?s report, many of those caught while working for CESA had received their posts with the help of the drug groups? influence, and some of them had criminal records.
[h=3]InSight Crime Analysis[/h] The Dominican Republic is an important transit point for drugs trafficked through the Caribbean from South Americ. Though only around 5 percent of US-bound cocaine transits through the Caribbean, recent indicators suggest that increased pressure in the isthmus has caused drug routes to increasingly shift back to the Caribbean. This is supported by figures from the US Military?s Southern Command, which recorded an increase in aerial and maritime trafficking activity last year through the Caribbean. Dominican authorities seized a record of more than 8 tons of cocaine last year.
In addition to the Dominican Republic?s police and military involvement in the drug trade, there have been recent indications of drug groups? ties to seemingly legitimate business enterprises. Earlier this month, three air force officials and the owner of a domestic airline carrier were arrested as part of a smuggling ring that transported drugs between Venezuela and an airport 150 kilometers from the country?s capital.
Especially troubling in Hoy?s report is the number of airport officials arrested for their role in drug smuggling. In March this year, the US State Department listed maritime trafficking as its main focus in Dominican anti-drug efforts, listing only one suspected drug flight for 2011. The arrest numbers released by Hoy, combined with the uncovering of the airport trafficking ring, suggest that many Dominican drug flights may have gone undetected.
Source: Dominican Watchdog
Category: NPN News by Locals |

Drug Arrests in Dominican Show Troubling Commercial-Military Ties

Drug Arrests in Dominican Show Troubling Commercial-Military Ties

• Written by Elyssa Pachico
• Tuesday, 02 October 2012

Caribair owner Rafael Rosado Fermin


Anti-narcotics authorities in the Dominican Republic announced they had dismantled a drug trafficking ring that used commercial airplanes to smuggle cocaine from Venezuela to the Caribbean, shining a light on a dark alliance between military personnel and legitimate business interests.

The National Drugs Control Agency (DNCD) announced the arrest of 15 people, including Rafael Rosado Fermin, the owner of domestic airline Caribair. Among the detainees are three members of the military, including an Air Force lieutenant, an Army lieutenant colonel and a sergeant major. A former police officer was also taken into custody, according to Hoy newspaper.
The other detainees include several Puerto Ricans and Venezuelans.
The head of the DNCD said that the trafficking ring was based out of a local airport in the town of Constanza, some 150 kilometers from the capital, Santo Domingo. The traffickers would send aircraft to the western state of Apure in Venezuela to pick up cocaine shipments. Then fly to the Dominican Republic.
Six airplanes were also seized as part of the law enforcement operation.
According to the AP, the DNCD said that the investigation into the trafficking ring began in 2011 with assistance from the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). But the arrests were made after authorities began investigating a plane crash near Constanza on September 27, which killed both the pilot and the passenger on board. The crash was ruled a mechanical accident, and led to the arrest of the three suspected military officials involved in the trafficking ring.
InSight Crime Analysis

The Dominican Republic is an important transit point for cocaine smuggled through the Caribbean. However what makes this case alarming is that, according to the US State Department, the most frequently used routes are maritime ones. The Dominican Republic reported only one suspected drug flight from South America in 2011, compared to the 11 suspected flights in 2010. The recent dismantling of this trafficking ring is one indication that aerial routes to Venezuela are still being used by drug traffickers.
Dominican Republic has taken action to try and discourage drug flights, passing a law last year that would require small planes to purchase their fuel from the DNCD. This could help explain the high number of officials captured as part of this law enforcement operation.
The island also has credited the usage of its modernized Air Force fleet, including eight Super Tucano warplanes, with driving drug flights away from the Caribbean island.The Air Force even once declared that the number of drug flights entering the country was reduced to zero.
But as these recent arrests show, drug traffickers may still be using the airspace with the complicity of business and security officials. These flights, therefore, were technically authorized making this ring more difficult to dismantle.
The US is certainly worried about the Caribbean, but also appears focused on sea traffic. The US Department of Homeland Security has said it intends to begin drone flights over the 1,000 mile stretch of ocean between the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico, mainly intended to monitor go-fast boats and other vessels.
The captures also solidify theories around Venezuelan trafficking routes. Apure province, which borders Colombia, was serving as a pickup and embarkation point. As the New York Times reported earlier this year, low-flying drug flights and airstrips are common sights in Apure, while Venezuelan authorities frequently report large-scale cocaine seizures here.
Colombian rebel groups the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the National Liberation Army (ELN) are both based in Apure and are involved in the cocaine trade, selling shipments to Colombian traffickers or to corrupt factions of the Venezuelan security forces.
Finally, the fact that the owner of an airline businesses and several mid-ranking members of the security forces were alleged collaborators in the drug trafficking ring points to the corrupting power of the drug trade in the Dominican Republic. Last year the police fired 360 officers for corruption, while the DNCD dismissed 84 employees, according to the US State Department.

Castle said:

Drugs get out of Colombia and into Venezuela thanks to corrupt security forces on both sides. They come to DR due to corrupt dominican armed forces. Apparently they go out of DR and into the US with no help of corrupt US forces, but by using fine smuggling skills...Is the DEA ever going to stop with this Cr@p????

Click to expand...

It is impossible to stop.

Castle said:

The drug traffic or the blaming other people for it?

Click to expand...

It is impossible to stop the drug traffic. Prohibition does not work.

pdmlynek said:

Wasn't this already covered in 3:40 to 4:00 in Glenn Frey - Smuggler's Blues (1984) - Original Music Video - YouTube some 28 years ago?

Click to expand...

Of course it was. And by the results of the prohibition of alcohol in the US as well. History has a way of repeating itself. Perhaps the US will get another generation of Kennedys out of it.

pdmlynek said:

I always shake my head when some loses his job as a "punishment" for his wrong doing. There are thousands, or hundreds of thousands of hard-working people who lost their jobs simply because of the company that they worked for was bought up by another, or simply because of an economic downturn. What are those people who are laid off punished for?

Click to expand...

Generally not for facilitating the movement of illegal drugs. Which are impossible to stop, but governments pay it lip service.