I do wonder about this government and drugs. I always understood that DR shipped 400 tons a year of cocaine to the US and Europe and that drugs were never stopped from leaving the country, only from coming in. And that doesn't seem to have changed all that much under Abinader. And yet now we have them arresting these families responsible for 28 tons a year of cocaine export. 28 tons is a big amount but clearly it still is a small percentage of the total. So I wonder whether they are seen as a little splinter operation that needed to be closed down because it was annoying the main players, or whether this is really a step in eliminating the drug shipments. If these guys do talk and name names of the military and the politicians they are back-handing, then this could have serious implications.
I do have a lot of respect for Abinader and for the prosecutors like Miriam Germán, I honestly believe that their hearts are in the right place and they want the country to change for the better. But I just wonder what is possible.
There have been the arrests of several big drug dealers through the years. Probably, the most well known are the cases of Quirino and Figueroa Agosto, but there are many others. By the nature of that illegal business, major drug dealers are into importing and exporting. These arrested due to drug tradficking in the South many or all of them (at least those on top) were into that considering most of the drugs isn’t created or sold in the DR, it simply goes through from its production in South America to some of the world’s biggest consumers of illicit drugs (USA/Europe.)
What would happen to that illegal trade if for the sake of argument demand in the USA is eliminated?
Let’s have a look where the supply is created and goes through for their biggest customers. The data is outdated, but I doubt muxh has changed.
In a way, the cocaine trade using the DR is like sugar production that almost all of it is for export to the United States. The differences are that the cocaine trade is illegal while the sugar trade isn’t and the DR doesn’t produces the cocaine it exports while most of the crystals of sugar that it produces are for the USA.
What would happen to Dominican sugar production if the main source of the demand (USA) is cut and no new demand source can be used to replace the lost one? The DR only needs a sliver of the current % dedicated to growing sugar cane (in fact, the DR always supplied itself with sugar, even before the late 1870’s / early 1880’s when the massive modern sugar plantations began to be created.)
There would be no Central Romana, Cristóbal Colón, CAEI, Montellano, Consuelo, Boca Chica, Barahona, etc and no bateyes. The East would had a more scant population than it currently have, it would be composed of a greater % of Dominicans from colonial times which increases when reaching places like Higüey and vicinity but decreases tremendously when in places like San Pedro de Macorís, and the demographic centers for the region would had been around El Seibo and Higüey. Most coastal cities like San Pedro de Macorís, La Romana, Boca Chica, etc wouldn’t exist and if something would had existed in their place they would had been villages or small towns at most. The economy of the east would revolve around cattle ranching (which has been done there since the 16 century) and tourism which by comparison started the other day.
Even the north coast would be somewhat different from now if sugar production had never increased. Places like Montellano wouldn’t exist since it came u]into existence because of the sugar plantation that was created there and the Montellano Sugar Mill (along with the bateyes that accompany all sugar plantations.) Neither the other sugar mill west of Puerto Plata (Amistad? I don’t remember the name of the sugar mill, but sugar cane is still grown there as can be seen from the road when driving from Perto Plata to Santiago.) But it should be said those are the largest sugar operations in the entire Cibao, most of the sugar production is done in the East and in second place is the South between San Cristóbal and Baní, and around Barahona. There used to be more sugar plantations such as near Azua, but they disappeared.
Even the immediate area around Santo Domingo were sugar plantations along with the bateyes (in fact, still there are some bateyes in the outskirts of Greater SD), now covered in cement.
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Lastly, where did you get that the DR yearly exports 400 tons of cocaine to the USA? In 2008 it was estimsted that around 60 tons of cocaine passed through the Caribbean and since all of it doesn’t pass through the DR, the country’s cocaine exports had to be less than that. Most went through Mexico and that was estimated at 140 tons. While it’s possibke the amount of cocaine has increased through the years, I doubt the 400 tons figure fir the DR. That way more that what was estimated for the cocaine that went through Mexico and I doubt today Mexico’s cocaine exports are even near that figure! Whatever the current export amounts for the DR, the tendency is that it has fallen since Quirino/Figueroa Agosto were knocked down.
