The former head of Operations of the National Drug Control Department (DNCD), retired general Francisco Antonio Hiraldo Guerrero, whose 16 bank accounts were investigated and six properties including two commercial locations were seized, has voluntarily decided to go to the United States, where he faces three charges of drug trafficking relating to former Army captain Quirino Ernesto Paulino Castillo’s international network.
“I declare that it is my desire to go voluntarily, I have no received any pressure, nor have I been compelled to decide to go voluntarily, they have seized my assets,” he said before the judges of the Second Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice, Miriam German Brito, presiding, Frank Soto Sanchez, Alejandro Moscoso Segarra, and Esther Angelan Casasnovas. Hiraldo Guerrero appeared at the continuation of the extradition hearing, which the SCJ was holding. Ramon Pina Acevedo, one of his lawyers, said that the high-ranking retired officer said he was “absolutely innocent of the charges filed against him, and he does this because he feels that this is a process, not a trial, and because of this he had agreed to go voluntarily.”
German Miranda Villalona said that the bank accounts that were affected belong both to Hiraldo as well as his wife, his mother in law, and other close friends. The assets include Hacienda “Dona Bethania”, which was built on a plot of land measuring 31,443m2, in parcel 98 of the Cadastral District 8 of the municipality of Bayaguana, in Monte Plata province. The authorities are saying that Bethania Rivas Pena, Hiraldo’s wife, is the “person, in whose name are registered the property assets of significant value and unjustifiable according to here known legal work activity.” They stressed that Celeste Pena Gonzalez de Vries, Hiraldo’s mother in law, has properties worth millions registered in her name, also described as “unjustifiable according to her known, legitimate, activities.”