Hoy newspaper tells that the Environment Ministry’s environmental police were able to arrest the driver of a truck laden with sand who did not heed their order for the truck to stop. Instead, the driver took flight and was pursued along the 6 de Noviembre highway until the agents were able to stop the truck by shooting at its tires. The Toyota truck did not have a license plate. Three vehicles were damaged during the chase when the truck spilled sand on Avenida Independencia, coming into Santo Domingo. The pursuit was carried out by the environmental police, under Engineer Jose Peralta, who is director of the Corteza Terrestre de la Subsecretaria de Suelos y Aguas. The driver was identified as Santo Hilario Martinez, according to the report in Hoy. The truck finally came to a halt at an Isla gas station, where the driver and his assistant were arrested. “This is one of the many problems we have to tackle on a daily basis with the illegal sand extractors,” Jose Peralta told the press. He said that in order to enforce the laws, the environmental police have encountered a number of dangerous situations because the truck drivers are often armed. He said that fines range from RD$14,000 to RD$50,000. He said that the tax for legally extracting sand is very low, at RD$4 per meter, given that the same meter of sand is sold for RD$400-RD$600.