The judge hearing the arraignments in the case against policemen and others accused of keeping a shipment of 400 kilos of cocaine seized from traffickers in August 2021 is postponed for 23 November. The contingent of police officers have a new lawyer that needs to study the file. The new lawyer is Ivan Ariel Gomez Rubio, a former Barahona prosecutor who media reports indicate had been removed for alleged irregularities related to a drug trafficking case in November 2019. Altagracia Salazar highlights that Gomez Rubio has strong ties in Barahona with the current prosecutors because most of these were his underlings.
The Public Prosecutor’s Office has requested that the Judicial Office of Permanent Attention Services in Barahona impose 18 months of preventive custody and declare the case against several police agents linked to the theft of a drug shipment as complex.
The measure was requested against corporal Esteban Armando Féliz Batista (Chatica), sergeant Oscar Andrés Valentín Jiménez (Oscalito), privates Iván Féliz Volquez and Carlos David Pimentel Cuevas (Cabezón), captain Rafael Amaurys Medina Pérez (Patú), and sergeants Frainel Féliz (Bambí), Jorge Ramón Alcántara Urbáez (Sargento Alcántara), Jordany Cuevas Méndez (Yoda), Miguel Ángel Féliz Féliz Féliz (Argenis), corporal Juan Carlos Medina Méndez (Pelo Fino) and private Junior Geraldo García.
In a press release, the Public Prosecutor’s Office points out that corporal Welni Féliz, and the privates Brayan Polanco and José M. Olivero are under arrest and the same custody measures have been requested for them.
Two other men identified so far as Alvaro and El Guardia, are being pursued by the authorities, for their ties to the case.
The judge hearing the case is María Consuelo Valenzuela. She accepted the postponement to give time to the defense to study the accusations file.
According to the investigation carried out by the Public Prosecutor’s Office, the drugs, weighing approximately 400 kilograms, were seized in Las Costas de la Salina, Villa Central, on 28 August 2021.
Investigators indicate that the drugs were not turned into the authorities, but instead they were allegedly sold to drug traffickers, who are being pursued with arrest warrants. The prosecutors have also established that in addition to the drugs, a rifle and three pistols were seized. Only the rifle has been recovered.
The Attorney General Office press release explains that after the theft of the narcotics, three other police agents and a civilian kidnapped corporal Esteban Armando Féliz Batista (Chatica). Four persons have been submitted to justice for the kidnapping. For them 18 months of preventive imprisonment is requested and that the case be declared complex. For the kidnapping, the Public Prosecutor’s Office proceeded with the submission to justice of the Police Wellington Ferreras, Jonathan Pérez, Cherilyn Suero Medina, and the civilian Jorge Luis Díaz.
The court postponed the coercive measure requested against those linked to the kidnapping for Thursday, 18 November.
El Dia reports that police woman Cherilyn Suero Medina and her husband Jonathan Andres Perez, also a policeman in Barahona, were the two people that corporal Feliz Batista described as who intercepted him in a black Tahoe vehicle to kidnap him and ask him for five million pesos as part of the loot for the drug theft. El Dia explains that Suero Medina is the daughter of the at the time chief of internal affairs of the Police in Barahona when the theft of the 400 kilos of cocaine took place in August 2021.
The commander of the Police in Barahona at the time of the 400 kilo cocaine theft was Eduardo Then, who was named in October 2021 the director of the National Police. He told El Dia that he had ordered internal affairs of the Police in Barahona to investigate the case at the time. The case of the stolen cocaine was only known by the public when corporal Esteban Armando Feliz was kidnapped.
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Attorney General Office
El Dia
El Dia
Altagracia Salazar Sin Maquillaje
17 November 2021