Diario Libre’s popular back-page editorial, De buena tinta, asks today why so many eyeglasses were needed to see what was so obvious? The writer is referring to the drug smuggling case involving Quirino Paulino Castillo. He says that the DR is an interesting country, where people see the foam but not the chocolate. He comments that Paulino displayed wealth that did not come with his social origin and the province of Elias Pina on the impoverished border with Haiti, “but nobody suspected, considering it all very natural.” Furthermore, no one was suspicious of his admission to the Army.
“Why would a person with so much money want to be a military? For a childhood dream?” He comments that not only did he enter into service, but he did so from the upper ranks, beginning as a lieutenant and receiving two consecutive promotions, until ascending to the rank of captain and assistant to a chief of staff.
The writer mentions that he was removed for political reasons during a purging of the military took place with the change of government. “But the DEA had to come to take part in a joint operation in order to uncover involvement with drug traffickers,” he writes.