Cocco demands attention
Miguel Cocco, the hard-nosed Customs chief, is demanding attention. And, he is getting it. Yesterday he put his staff on buses and went to the Attorney General's offices in Santo Domingo where he handed over a large file that implicated three people who had been caught attempting to evade over half a billion pesos in import duties. A magistrate has ordered three months in preventive custody at La Victoria for one of the accused, Julio Alfredo Rondon Abreu,. However, the names of the other two accused were not released to the public. With his personal appearance at Radhames Jimenez's office, the customs czar wanted to emphasize the urgency of the case, according to Diario Libre. Cocco said that Rondon imported appliances but declared them to Customs as items receiving preferential duties. One issue that apparently caused great bother to the Director General of Customs was the fact that Rondon had been processed in a case involving RD$56 million and "he kept acting as if nothing had happened."
