Numerous top Dominican officials, quizzed by the press, insisted that they had not been informed about U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) plans to open an office in Santo Domingo. FBI Director Louis Freeh announced the new office along with those in seven other countries. Major-General José Anibal Sanz Jiminián, head of the National Police, and Eduardo Latorre, Minister of Foreign Relations, both professed to have not heard of the plans. Minister of the Interior and Police Ramón Andrés Blanco Fernández also said he had not been informed of such plans, and that he would consider an FBI office here to be a violation of nation sovereignty. Contacted by the news daily El Siglo, U.S. Embassy spokesman Michael Stanton confirmed that there indeed will be an FBI representative or representatives in Santo Domingo, but stressed that they would operate under the coordination of the Embassy and work primarily as liaisons with their counterparts in the Dominican government, nothing more. He characterized them as no different from representatives from other U.S. agencies already here under the Embassy umbrella, such as customs, agriculture, immigration, commerce or the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).
