Divers are charging as much as RD$7,000 to recover a body from the very high surf off the North Coast, west of Luperon, where a stolen sailboat reportedly capsized and took the lives of most of its around 40 passengers. According to El Caribe and the Listin Diario, these local rescue teams operate with little equipment but full of incredible courage, and were credited with the rescue of four more bodies from the sea. A deputy in the Dominican Congress offered RD$3,000 for three cadavers, one family reneged on their offer and another gave a diver RD$7,000 for the body of their perished loved one. These and other scenes of suffering were common on the cliffs near the place where the small craft capsized with about 40 people on board. Members of the Dominican Navy, Civil Defense and Red Cross were in the area trying to offer some help to the victims’ families. Small boats were seen at sea and others were riding the large waves as families struggled to find enough money to keep searching for their family members. Local divers from Luperon, equipped with just face masks, beaten-up swim-fins and a lot of local knowledge, pulled three bodies from the sea. Many of these divers have participated in rescue efforts before and, as Deputy Fiordeliza Estevez told reporters, “If you deal with the local divers, they will find your body.”
Meanwhile in Puerto Plata, the local prosecutor’s office has detained one person, as yet unidentified, in connection with the ill-fated trip. According to the prosecutor, the organizer of the trip went to the US with RD$1.4 million in his pockets, the result of the sale of the illegal passage for sums of RD$40,000 to RD$60,000.