Quirino Ernesto Paulino Castillo, 44, was well known to the DNCD (Dominican DEA), who had him pegged as one of the major drug traffickers in the Dominican Republic. In spite of this, he was admitted into service with the National Army with the rank of lieutenant. Hoy newspaper’s sources told them that on 3 January 2002, Paulino Castillo entered the Army as a second lieutenant, and before the year was out he had been made a captain. The Listin Diario revealed that Paulino Castillo was a close friend of former Army chief of staff and now-retired Major General Jorge R Zorilla Ozuna. Zorilla Ozuna carried a high profile during the reelection campaign of former President Hipolito Mejia, openly campaigning for the later, despite this being banned to the military.
Upon being arrested, Paulino Castillo was in possession of four Winchester shotguns and a 9mm Browning automatic. Part of the Fernandez administration’s first order of business was the forced retirement of several hundred officers who were closely tied to the former PRD administration, and as such Paulino Castillo was released from service, without a pension, in September. According to its sources, Hoy reports that the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) had been tracking Paulino Castillo for two years, “but the investigation had to be stopped.” When the new government started to clean up the ranks and Paulino Castillo was demoted and then retired from Army service the investigation was able to net them their target.
Paulino Castillo has been flagged as the leader of the ring involved with the DR’s second biggest drug seizure in the past 10 years. Hoy’s report says that millions of pesos worth of assets have been confiscated from the former military captain, including luxury vehicles, farmland, helicopters, warehouses, gas stations, warehouses, bank accounts, factories and night clubs. Hernandez Peguero signaled that more property could be seized in the course of the ongoing investigation to add to the evidence that they already have, evidence that he assumed was derived through illicit means.