With the dissident vote of the president of the Second Hall of the Penal Chamber of the Court of Appeals of the National District, the court ordered the release on bail of Colombian brothers Huber Osvaldo Buitrago Ruiz and Angel Maria Buitrago Vacca, suspected of heading a money laundering and drug trafficking network in the country. Attorney General Francisco Dominguez Brito said the court’s decision was a crime and said that both men belonged to one of the most dangerous cartels operating in South America and the Caribbean that has used the DR for laundering millions of dollars and trafficking in drugs. With the decision, judges Pedro Antonio Sanchez Rivera and Luis Omar Jimenez revoked the preventive custody that had been issued against both suspects and instead set bail for RD$3 million.
As reported in Hoy, the criminal organization allegedly headed by the Buitrago brothers was disbanded on 12 December when the drug agents searched 14 locations in Santo Domingo, Santiago, Jarabacoa, La Vega and Bonao and 26 members of the group were arrested, including the Buitrago brothers.
Judge Gonzalez Perez justified his dissident vote by saying that preventive custody is the only thing that can guarantee the presence of the two Colombians in the procedures because neither of them has a duly accredited identity since they have used fake Venezuelan Passports to enter and leave the country. He said there are also serious elements that lead him to the reasonable presumption that the two men could be guilty of the international drug trafficking charges.
Attorney German Miranda Villalona said that the brothers were also being linked to the recent discovery of a major underground drug lab in San Cristobal, as reported in Hoy.
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