What is now believed to be a major national and international drug trafficking network agreed to a payment of US$40,000 to take the small airplane which crashed in Tireo, Constanza, to Venezuela, with the promise that after taking it on to Honduras laden with cocaine the pilot would collect US$250,000 and the co-pilot US$150,000, as reported in Diario Libre. The structure of the alleged network that used the DR as a center of operations reveals the delivery of airplanes to South American countries like Venezuela and Colombia, to Honduras in Central America, and to and from the Dominican Republic with large consignments of illegal drugs.
The District Attorney of the National District’s Department for the Pursuit of Narcotic Drugs has requested coercive measures against eleven defendants implicated in the use of the aircraft that crashed in Tireo, Constanza. Two men died in the crash, including Police Captain Anthony Eduardo Leyba, who was subsequently revealed to be acting as an undercover agent.
The District Attorney says that the National Drug Control Agency (DNCD) Sensitive Investigations Division was informed by a trustworthy source that the organization was trying to acquire 108 gallons of Jet A-1 fuel to take the aircraft to Apure, Venezuela. It is suspected that a Venezuelan fugitive and alleged drug trafficker, Luis Alberto Ascanio Blanco, is allegedly in Dominican territory and that he controls and watches all of the steps of the organization. It was also said that the Venezuelan defendant Jose Luis Vera Marquez was in charge of making the contacts to get the airplane out of the country. Besides this he is the person, supposedly, sent by the Colombian and Venezuelan cartels to channel, prepare and plan everything concerning the shipment of an airplane to Venezuela with the purpose of loading it with cocaine and then returning it to the DR.
The Piper N711WX airplane, acquired in the United States and brought to the country to Puerto Plata, was supposedly received by Victor Hugo Sanchez who flew to the Expedicion 14 de Junio Airport in Constanza. Earlier this week Diario Libre reported that the plane was brought in from the Bahamas in early August, landing at the Puerto Plata airport, according to international flight plans.
El Dia reports that the network worked for the Norte del Valle cartel that in turn sourced drugs from the Mexican Golfo cartel, an adversary of the Sinaloa cartel that is said to have set up operations in Santiago in recent years.
Two Dominican businessmen, Rafael Rosado Fermin, president of the airline Caribair, and Sergio Rene Gomez Diaz, are accused of asset laundering in connection with this case.
www.diariolibre.com/noticias/2012/10/03/i354249_detalla-contrato-pilotos-compra-aeronaves-para-narco.html