While family members told reporters from several newspapers their versions of the events, the end result, the death of the owner of the Solano Money Exchange was a fact. He was killed by his 74-year old uncle in retaliation for his alleged role in the death of Julio Cesar Solano Bautista (Julito). Family members told Hoy reporter Soila Paniagua that the uncle had planned this killing and started shooting even in the presence of police officers. Readers might remember that last year the modest money exchange house was searched as a result of the arrest of a drug trafficker, Manuel Emilio Mesa Beltre (a.k.a. El Gringo). When El Gringo was picked up in the company of Yokasta Erperalda Campusano, they found RD$4.3 million in the SUV. The pair testified that the money was a loan from the Solano Brothers Money Exchange. The District Attorney of the National District (Alejandro Moscoso Segarra, now a Supreme Court judge) ordered a search of the exchange house and the authorities found over RD$50 million in cash on the premises. With no proof to back money-laundering charges, the case was dropped (as was the accusation of being the brains behind the murder of his cousin) and the money had been returned.