From 2013 to 2015, Police colonel Faustino Rosario Díaz, who is among those arrested for the murder of lawyer Yuniol Ramírez, purchased assets worth RD$17.2 million after entering the service of the Metropolitan Office of Bus Services (Omsa), as reported in El Dia. Rosario is under pre-trial custody and suspected of involvement in the murder of Ramirez.
In 2013, the police colonel was named financial manager at Omsa. On 14 October of that year he is known to have purchased a farm in Boca Chica worth RD$8 million. Other items obtained in 2015 were valued at an RD$5.7 million apartment, a 2016 Toyota Land Cruiser valued at RD$3.5 million.
In a personal financial statement issued, Rosario Díaz says the assets were purchased with his own resources and those of his wife, Rosa Peña Sosa, who is an executive at the corporation Ramel Corporation SRL. The company is a supplier to Omsa.
Rosario was on the payroll of the Omsa making RD$75,000 while he was paid RD$38,000 a month as a Police colonel.
In addition, El Dia reports that Santana Zorrilla was previously in the media spotlight after an audit in 2010 carried out to the Ministry of Public Health, revealed that companies owned by Santana were benefitted by contracts that the Chamber of Accounts identified as irregular. The contract work was for more than RD$100 million, including Isumit Auto Parts, C. por A.
Manuel Rivas, the fired director of the Omsa, is the second former director of Omsa who is tied to murder after managing the institution. Rivas was preceded by transporter Arsenio Quevedo, who is in pre-trial custody for contract killing. He worked as deputy technical director of Omsa, while at the same time being a president of a transport union. Rivas was appointed to the position in 2012 despite being preceded by several charges of irregularities made in the press but was never investigated by state control agencies until the death of Ramírez.
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El Dia
23 October 2017
