East Santo Domingo District Attorney’s Office announced the dismantling of a network that trafficked Dominicans who died in Mexico when attempting to illegally travel to the United States. The corpses of six Dominicans who died in the Chiapas crash are expected to arrive on a flight on Christmas Day.
The District Attorney’s Office of Santo Domingo East and North say they have dismantled, in coordination with the Specialized Prosecutor’s Office against Trafficking in Persons and Smuggling of Migrants, an international human trafficking network used by at least three of the Dominicans who died in the truck crash on the highway in Chiapas, Mexico.
During an extensive operation carried out simultaneously in Baní and San Pedro de Macorís, the Prosecutor’s Office arrested Guillermo Guzmán Marcano, Leonel Antonio Méndez Arias (El Duro), Román Alberto Casalinovo Trinidad (Guardia), Santo Francisco Vizcaíno Guerrero and Jesús Antonio Martínez Díaz. The arrested have yet to be arraigned.
The arrests were made in raids coordinated by the Public Prosecutor’s Office with the help of the Special Division for the Investigation of Transnational Crimes (Deidet) of the National Police.
The arrested group is accused of promoting, inducing and financing the illicit trafficking of persons, in violation of Law 137-03, on Trafficking in Persons and Smuggling of Migrants, and Law 155-17, on Money Laundering, explained the chief prosecutor of the jurisdiction, Milcíades Guzmán Leonardo.
The investigations show that the dismantled network was dedicated to the trafficking of persons from Santo Domingo to the United States, through countries such as Panama, Guatemala and Mexico, to where the undocumented persons were transported in freight trailers.
Investigations are still ongoing. The Ministry of Foreign Relations reported on Tuesday that six Dominican fatalities in the Chiapas crash and three injured and seven missing nationals.
Members of the disbanded criminal organization charged up to $20,000 per person trafficked, for which they amassed sumptuous properties, including high-end vehicles.
Listin Diario reports that the people smuggling operation using the Panama-Mexico route to get to the United States was based in Peravia and had more than four decades in operation. Three of the accused are from Peravia (Guillermo Guzman Marcano, Leonel Antonio Mendez Arias and Santo Francisco Vizcaino Guerrero).
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23 December 2021