The Dominican Republic is a major victim of the growing levels of drug consumption in the United States. The local crime rate has spiraled with the advent of the drug trade since the 90s, drug consumption is now a health issue in the country. Drug money has permeated government, with negative effects.
In New York, Dominican nationals manage the largest network of neighborhood supermarkets. Likewise, the high entrepreneurial Dominicans has lead these to be involved in the sales of the drugs, seen as a chance at becoming rich fast by many.
In its 2017 National Drug Threat Assessment, the US Department of Justice’s Drug Enforcement Administration, includes the Dominican Republic together with Mexican and Asian groups as a major player in the sales of the drugs in the United States.
The DEA assessment explains that Dominicans operate as a loose network of independent groups with intermittent collaboration, and are not part of a larger centralized conglomerate. The report states that Dominicans function as entrepreneurial opportunists than structured hierarchical components. The focus of Dominicans is mainly the mid-Atlantic region of the East Coast of the US with the strongest influence concentrated in areas of the Northeast located along the I-95 interstate corridor.
The report explains Dominicans work in collaboration with foreign suppliers to have heroin and cocaine shipped directly to the Northeast from Mexico, Colombia and t he Dominican Republic. The report states that Dominican Transnational Criminal Organizations (TCOs) primarily focus on on the mid-level distribution of cocaine and white powder heroin, effectively serving as a bridge between foreign sources of supply and domestic street dealers in the region. Dominican TCOs also engage in street-level sales in certain parts of the Northeast, says the 2017 report.
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DEA
16 November 2017
