Totaling over a ton in the lat 17 days, the Director General for Drug Control (DNCD) has seized 442 kilos of cocaine in the parking lot of the CIRSA Casino Hispanola in Santo Domingo. The drugs were found in a green Ford Windstar that was parked in the lot, and two Colombians and two Dominicans were arrested. According to officials from the United States Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), a kilo of cocaine sells for US$12,000 in the Dominican Republic, making yesterday’s seizure worth US$5.3 million. While the recent spate of large drug busts might seem, at first glance, to indicate an increase in drug trafficking, DNCD chief, Ivan Pena Castillo attributes the seizures to ever increasing intelligence work, tighter controls and a heightened state of alert among DNCD officers, as well as drug officials from the US, Colombia and Venezuela.