President Danilo Medina acknowledged on Friday, 18 January 2019, as the nation began the Altagracia Day-long weekend, that drug trafficking has permeated the military and security agencies. Nevertheless, the President said the situation is not a threat to the country and that there is a constant struggle to fight the scourge given the criminal organizations that handle enormous amounts of money in all of Latin America.
“What is happening is that here there is already a quantity of drugs that remain circulating in the country as a result of the situation in which the drug traffickers, are not paying their workers in dollars, but rather with the drugs,” said the President. He explained that then the local dealers have to sell these drugs at the retail level to get paid.
“Anyone, today, even many white-collar people, are linked to the drug trade and drug trafficking has penetrated many areas of the Dominican Republic, including military and security areas,” said Medina speaking after the presentation of credentials of new ambassadors in the country.
Medina then blamed the US rule that repatriates hundreds of convicted Dominican drug traffickers who then become local drug retailers. He said the country does not have a program to re-assimilate these persons into society. He said the Dominican Republic has gone from being a transshipment point for illegal drugs to being a nation where these narcotics are being sold on the streets of country.
“That is a problem of Dominican society that we have to see what we do with that amount of deported Dominicans who arrive every week from the United States. He said 80 criminals can arrive on a single flight in any week from the United States. “We have to learn to fight this new type of crime that is imported from the United States, that is affecting us too,” he maintained. Nevertheless, he insisted that homicides in the country are down 15%.
Read more in Spanish:
El Caribe
22 January 2019
