The sister publication of the Miami Herald, El Nuevo Herald publishes a frontpage story on 2 July with allegations that when running for office, President Danilo Medina would have accepted financing for his presidential campaign from Cesar Emilio Peralta, also known as “the Dominican Pablo Escobar.” The publication coincides with the last day of the 5 July presidential election in the Dominican Republic.
Recently, the ruling Dominican Liberation Party (PLD) has accused the opposition party, the Modern Revolutionary Party (PRM) of having candidates running for the 5 July election that have ties to drug trafficking. A first case released by the PLD in early June was that of a PRM activist in the southwest, Yamil Abreu Navarro, from Las Lagunas, Padre las Casas, a small town of 4,000 people. Abreu has an extradition order from a New York prosecutors for charges of ties to the Sinaloa, Mexico drug cartel.
This week, the Attorney General Office announced the arrest of a candidate to deputy for the PRM in La Vega, Rosa Amalia Pilarte, who is married to businessman Miguel Arturo Lopez Florencio and his son, Jose Miguel Lopez Pilarte, who are also under preventive custody. In violation of the 48-hour rule, the Attorney General postponed presenting charges until after the 5 July election. The Police would confirm both Lopez Florencio and Lopez Pilarte are in the police ranks. Later it was known that Rosa Amalia Pilarte is not under arrest. She is protected by a law that bans arrest eight days before a presidential election.
El Nuevo Herald story focuses on César Peralta, under arrest in Colombia since December 2019, claims to have financed President Danilo Medina’s campaign for President, and to have had access to ministers in his government. After the US Justice gave Peralta “Kingpin Act” status and presented the evidence to the Medina administration, Peralta relocated in Colombia. Days later, Attorney General Jean Alain Rodriguez announced an operation to locate Peralta, who eventually left the country. Now Peralta is wanted for extradition by the US justice system to respond to charges he orchestrated an international drug trafficking network that operated in Colombia, Venezuela, Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic.
El Nuevo Herald reports that before his arrest, “Peralta operated freely for years within the Dominican Republic, describing himself publicly as a successful nightclub owner and appearing on his social networks dressed in exorbitant costumes and showing off his fondness for luxury watches.”
El Nuevo Herald attributed the impunity with which Peralta created his empire to the protection he received from unidentified sectors of the government.
Read more in Spanish:
El Nuevo Herald
DR1 News
Listin Diario
2 July 2020