The Attorney General’s Office has asked for one year remand in jail for 11 people out of the 25 people arrested and implicated in the case of the theft of 950 kilos of cocaine from the Central Police Anti Narcotics Division (Dican).
The 11 include Dican director Colonel Carlos Fernandez Valerio, head of operations Lieutenant Colonel Felix Humberto Paulino Lopez, two assistant prosecutors in Santo Domingo province, Maximo Diaz Ogando and Ramon Veras Castro, Major Rudy Jose Japa Alvarez, Major Luciano Gomez Cabrera, Lieutenant Barbaro Torrez Beltran, Sergeant Major Antolin de los Santos, Sergeant Pedro Jose Almanzar, Corporal Agapito Munoz Evangelista and Private Raidirys Garcia Miranda.
Attorney General Francisco Dominguez Brito held a press conference yesterday, Tuesday 13 January 2015 to give details of the investigations to ascertain who had taken the unreported drugs.
He said that conclusive proof showed that the Dican director and the Head of Operations, as well as the two assistant prosecutors are all directly linked to the crime, as well as the others who had had arrest warrants issued.
The charges include illegal drug trafficking, criminal association, forgery of documents and money laundering.
Dominguez Brito said that he had asked police chief Major General Manuel Castro Castillo to carry out the investigation into the missing drugs and he had immediately set up a commission for this purpose led by assistant prosecutor Bolivar Sanchez Veloz. The commission also included German Daniel Miranda Villalona, head of the Money Laundering Unit, the prosecutor for the Court of Appeal in Santo Domingo province Robert Rodriguez, and public prosecutor Olga Dina, along with the two judges who initially worked on the case, Ivan Lorenzo and Jose Alberto Jimenez.
Dominguez Brito added that previous investigations carried out alerted authorities to the fact that there were drugs in a house in Isabelita neighborhood on 27 September 2014. Allegedly, a police major took the information to public prosecutor Maximo Diaz Ogando who then spoke to the head of Operations at Dican and he assembled a team to carry out the raid.
Dominguez Brito maintained that the warrants for the raid on the house, in which 950 kilos of cocaine were found, were completed with false information that did not adhere to the legal process and the drugs did not enter the normal chain of custody in that they were not transferred to the forensic science laboratory, Inacif.
According to Dominguez Brito, the drugs seized during the operation were used to buy the silence of all those involved and well as high-ranking police officers and members of the public prosecution service.
He said that the investigation showed that during the operation several people came and went from Colonel Valerio’s apartment on Mexico Avenue, where the drugs were taken.
He added that as far as they know 250 kilos of the drugs went to the public prosecutors who were under arrest and the other 700 kilos stayed with Colonel Paulino who is thought to have sold part of them in the local market.
As far as the goods they recovered are concerned, he said that so far they had RD$1,450,000 that had been handed over voluntarily by one of the sergeants who took part in the raid, as well as a 2014 SUV. Another of the participants who allegedly received around RD$3 million from Colonel Paulino handed over an apartment that he had bought with RD$2.6 million and a vehicle valued at RD$400,000.
Dominguez Brito said that the investigation was still not over and warned that it did not matter who you were, he would prosecute all organized crime and under no circumstances should anyone associate with criminals and drug dealers. He said that he was expecting to make more arrests among the police, even high-ranking police officers.
Arrest warrants were issued for the following: Lieutenant Colonels Lopez Paulino, Voltaire Batista Matos and Francisco Valenzuela, assistant prosecutors Maximo Antonio Diaz Ogando, Ramon Augusto Veras Castro and Leonidas Suarez Martinez, Colonels Juan Bulus Andujar, Guillermo Baez Hubiera and Fernandez Valerio, Majors Gomez Cabrera, Junior Vasquez Baez, Japa Alvarez and Alberto Jimenez Ruiz, Captains Edwin La Paz Zapata and Carlos Amezquita Reinoso, First Lieutenants Torres Beltran and William Rudy Rosario Guerrero, Sergeant Majors De los Santos Zabala and Francisco Perez Castro; Sergeant Pedro Jose Almanzar Gonzalez, Corporal Munoz Evangelista, Private Garcia Miranda, Lieutenant Juan Belen Mejia and a civilian, Santo Emilio Hernandez.
http://www.listindiario.com/la-republica/2015/1/14/352478/Arrestan-a-exjefe-de-Dican-por-robo-y-venta-de-droga