President Luis Abinader has ordered the National Health Insurance (Senasa) to constitute as a civil party in the corruption case detected within the institution. As reported in El Dia, the move is intended to ensure the recovery of “up to the last peso stolen from public assets,” according to the presidential order.
By constituting Senasa as a civil actor, the government aims to use legal means to claim damages and restitution of the misappropriated funds, maximizing efforts to recover public money in the ongoing investigation.
State prosecutors announced the arrest of government officials and business people on Sunday, 7 December. The prosecutors now have 48 hours to present charges. The most prominent arrested in the case is Santiago Hazim Albainy, former general manager of the state health insurance plan from 2020 to when he was replaced in August 2025 by Edward Rafael Guzmán Padilla after the scandal hit the media. The other high profile arrest is that of businessman Eduardo Read Estrella. The National Business Council has stepped forth and called for the respect of due legal process in the case.
The Attorney General Office prosecutors has named the case as Operation Cobra.
The Senasa situation came to the open after medics protested when there were delays in receiving payments, opening the lid to a dozen reportedly fraudulent schemes that lead to billions in profits for contractors and complacent government officials. Diario Libre reports that Senasa has more than 7.4 million affiliates.
The group now faces serious charges, including: collusion of public officials, malfeasance and prevarication, criminal association, bribery, embezzlement, falsification and use of false documents, money laundering and fraud against the Dominican government.
As reported in Noticias SIN, 25 prosecutors, with the backing of more than 200 National Police agents, conducted 12 coordinated search warrants as part of the extensive crackdown.
In addition to Hazim and Read, the names of others arrested are Gustavo Enrique Messina Cruz, Germán Rafael Robles Quiñones, Francisco Iván Minaya Pérez, Cinty Acosta Sención, Ramón Alan Speakler Mateo, and Ada Ledesma Ubiera, as reported in Noticias SIN.
Listin Diario and Diario Libre publish breakdown of who is who among the arrested in this case.
El Dia publishes a summary on the case by TV investigative journalist Edith Febles. Febles writes that preliminary investigations show that Senasa disbursed over 12 billion pesos to private companies, many of which were registered as health supply providers after 2020, coinciding with the start of Santiago Hazim’s tenure.
These multi-billion peso expenditures, which have been flagged by the Superintendency of Health and Labor Risks (Sisalril) and are now reportedly under scrutiny by the Public Ministry, primarily centered on the purchase of supplements, primary care services and acquisition of vaccines.
Febles explains that technical staff from Sisalril reportedly challenged these expenditures repeatedly, going so far as to warn that the massive spending on nutrients jeopardized the economic sustainability of the public Social Security Administrator (ARS).
Febles writes that despite the early warnings questioning the new nutritional programs—targeting schoolchildren and the elderly—these remained active accumulating a total expenditure of nearly six billion pesos.
Read more in Spanish:
El Dia
El Dia
Listin Diario
Listin Diario
Listin Diario
Diario Libre
Diario Libre
Diario Libre
CDN
Noticias SIN
Noticias SIN
Noticias SIN
Noticias SIN
8 December 2025