The police reported three deaths in Boca Chica and San Francisco de Macoris, and the body of a police corporal who disappeared several days ago was discovered in eastern Santo Domingo. The police also frustrated a robbery and captured a gang of swindlers who were cheating people at ATMs at the Las Americas Airport.
In San Francisco de Macoris, Willys Jose Rojas Garcia (Willys Tatuaje “Willy Tattoo”) and Miguel Santana Payano (El Mello) were killed in an exchange of gunfire with the police, who had found them trying to steal two cars from a car wash near Los Rieles, just outside the city. Both men were well known to the police. In Boca Chica, near an area called “El Play”, next to the “Tanquecito”, the police stopped a man known as Alex and another called Johnny Fundita (Johnny Little Bag) as they attempted to rob a motorcycle taxi. In the shootout, Alex was killed and Fundita escaped. The police found a .38 caliber revolver at the scene.
In the Herrera section of Santo Domingo, the police responded to phone calls from neighbors who reported that the alarms from the La Despensa supermarket were going off. Inside, the police found a 19-year old youth, whose name was not given to the press, who had remained inside the store to rob it.
Police corporal Deivi D’Oleo Inoa had been missing for five days according to his mother. He was assigned to the staff of the Chief of Police, General Santana Paez. His body was found with a single gunshot to the head, bound and gagged, near the bridge on the Charles de Gaulle Avenue. The corporal was last seen as he hitched a ride home to his neighborhood in Sabana Perdida.
Finally, the police announced the arrest of four men who allegedly headed a gang responsible for stealing RD$1.2 million from unsuspecting people at the Las Americas International Airport. The police found and confiscated 20 different credit cards, a bottle of glue, three crayons, and a Toyota Camry. According to the police report, the men went to the airport every day, and approached people using the different ATM machines, telling them that a certain machine was out of order and offering to help them use another one. The machine suggested would not return the credit card because of the glue the gang had used. Many people did not immediately report the problem and the gang members would extract the card and use it to withdraw large sums of money. One woman, Evelin Rodriguez, told the police that she was tricked out of US$2,500. The lightening strike arrests took place in the airport parking lot to avoid startling the public.