The Ministry of Environment reported at least 50 people were arrested in Los Haitises National Park since Friday, 12 May 2023. The Ministry says the arrested include three Dominicans and 47 foreigners.
The director of Protected Areas for the Ministry of Environment, Ney Soto, and Captain René Rodríguez Álvarez, head of the National Environmental Protection Service (Senpa), said protected area brigades will continue to arrest persons who commit environmental crimes within the park. He said the people are turned to the Public Prosecutor’s Office or to the Migration Agency, in the case of undocumented foreigners.
Soto said some 26 shacks were destroyed and three horses, two mules and 50 cows are in custody, as the intervention continues.
After talking with the commanders of the deployed military forces, Soto emphasized that, as part of the organization of the operation, both Ceara Hatton and the Minister of Defense, Lieutenant General Carlos Luciano Díaz Morfa, asked the agents to act firmly in the face of environmental crime and, at the same time, to respect all the rights of the offenders and to hand them over to the Public Ministry, the body responsible for ensuring that the offenders are prosecuted and punished by the justice system.
The Los Haitises Joint Interagency Task Force (FTCIH) 2023, which is being carried out by land and sea, is completing several phases to eradicate environmental crimes within the park, which is characterized by a system of caverns that serve as a natural space to accumulate subway water reserves.
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El Dia
15 May 2023