The director of the Customs Office, Vicente Sanchez Baret, has ordered the transfer of more than 90 employees and the firing of supervisors and inspectors at the Las Americas International Airport after receiving claims from passengers of extortion and reports of contraband at the country’s main airport. The decision comes after the press revealed that security forces at the airport had confiscated a load of 51,000 contraband watches. Also prompting the action was a complaint from a relative of a high government officer who supposedly was extorted by airport employees. (1 November 2001)
