Major General Manuel de Jesus Perez Sanchez, the chief of the National Police, told reporters from the Diario Libre that the police colonel arrested in connection with the truck filled with 1,387 kilos (one and a half tons) of cocaine had been scrutinized back in 1989 following a complaint by a Pedernales parish priest. No hard evidence emerged to make the charges stick, however. In Hoy, reporter Elias Ruiz Matuk writes that at least 21 officers and 80 enlisted personnel were allowed to re-enter the Armed Forces after 16 August, 2000, despite the fact that they had been discharged for criminal activities that included robbery and drug trafficking. At around the same time, seven civilians entered into the services despite having committed felonies. This situation was known to the former authorities and Hipolito Mejia’s administration. In fact, former Armed Forces Minister Jose Miguel Soto Jimenez assembled a commission to investigate the problem. The results of that inquiry are in the archives of Hoy newspaper. In the Army, they found one colonel, two lieutenant colonels, three majors, three captains, one first lieutenant and three second lieutenants who were returned to service before 18 August 2003. The Army also had 77 sergeants, privates, and corporals implicated in crimes ranging from rapes to homicides among its members. The commission found that in the Navy there were seven high-ranking officers found guilty of serious breaches of conduct, including the organization of illegal migration voyages. There were 33 sailors of varying ranks who held prior serious legal problems. The same commission learned that an Air Force technical captain was registered in the archives of the National Investigation Department (DNI) as an Army sergeant and had been discharged for his role in the transport of 399 kilos of cocaine, according to the DNCD. The case took place in 1990 and involved an American Airlines flight from Santo Domingo to Miami.