The Dominican Republic is the geographical center of the Americas. The country has the most aviation and maritime connections between the Americas and the rest of the world.
The same geopolitical and geographical openness in place for decades have created the conditions for the country to become a crossroad for the transnational cocaine trade between North America, South America and Europe.
InSight Crime has published a three-part investigation on how international crime found support in the political leadership in the Dominican Republic. The report looks into the local kingpins, international drug traffickers and their relations with local politicians. It delves into political figures who have reportedly crossed the line from associating with criminals to becoming involved directly in crime; judges who have dismissed following accusations of receiving payments from traffickers, trafficker influence on the Police and in the highest instances in Dominican government.
The investigation gives details of the infrastructure, the trafficking networks and the corruption that has facilitated organized crime.
It looks into efforts to use technology to fight trafficking at main ports, the big capos, including Cesar Peralta today under arrest in Puerto Rico, and the efforts of President Luis Abinader, in power since August 2020, to reduce the impact international crime has in the Dominican Republic.
Read the full investigation:
InsightCrime
8 September 2022