On 12 June 2018, the US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) announced it has sanctioned Dominican Republic Senator Felix Ramón Bautista Rosario for engaging in corrupt acts, including in relation to reconstruction efforts in Haiti. OFAC also implicated five entities owned or controlled by Bautista. The US Treasury office explained the actions are an effort to isolate corrupt actors from the US financial system.
According to OFAC:
“These actions are part of our continuing campaign to hold accountable government officials and other actors involved in human rights abuse and corrupt activities. Senator Bautista used his position to engage in corruption, including profiting off of humanitarian efforts related to rebuilding Haiti,” said Sigal Mandelker, Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence. “The United States will continue to use Global Magnitsky and our other authorities to ensure that corrupt actors and human rights violators cannot use our financial system to enable and support their abhorrent activities and exploit the innocent.”
The office established that Bautista engaged in significant acts of corruption in both the Dominican Republic and Haiti, and that he has been publicly accused of money laundering and embezzlement. “Bautista has reportedly engaged in bribery in relation to his position as a Senator, and is alleged to have engaged in corruption in Haiti, where he used his connections to win public works contracts to help rebuild Haiti following several natural disasters, including one case where his company was paid over $10 million for work it had not completed,” reported the US Treasury.
In a related action, OFAC designated five entities in the Dominican Republic that are owned or controlled by Bautista: Constructora Hadom SA, Soluciones Electricas Y Mecanicas Hadom S.R.L., Seymeh Ingenieria SRL, Inmobiliaria Rofi SA, and Constructora Rofi SA. This means that US persons or companies are banned from carrying out transactions with the companies.
The US Embassy reported on its website on 12 June 2018 that senator Félix Bautista, his wife, and children can no longer travel to the United States. The decision is the result of applying the Trump administration Magnitsky Act that penalizes foreigners for corruption or human rights abuses. Bautista becomes the second Dominican to be affected by the act. The first was Angel Rondon, commercial representative of Odebrecht in the Dominican Republic, who was penalized with similar measure.
The Magnitsky Act calls for the publishing of the list of the names of those that are affected. The US Embassy, on its website, names Bautista’s wife, Sarah Haydee Rojas Peña, his minor children, and other children including Félix Ramón Bautista Abreu, Félix José Bautista Abreu, Félix Miguel Bautista Soler, Félix Fidel Bautista Grullón, and Yanilssa Bautista Bencosme, whose visas were cancelled.
Senator Bautista in the past had maneuvered to escape any local penalization from extensive list of acts of corruption that had been presented in the judiciary. His lawyers on several occasions pushed through legal actions that resulted in the filing away of his case. Transparency International had included Bautista in its list of the most corrupt people in the world.
Over the years, despite major accusations made in the Dominican judiciary, accusations made onto Bautista for corruption have never been able to advance through the Dominican justice system.
Bautista was director of the Supervisory Office of Public Works of the Presidency under President Leonel Fernández. He later became a senator where he has privileged jurisdiction.
Former prosecutor Francisco Domínguez Brito called for his removal from his role as secretary of organization of the ruling PLD party. Domínguez Brito aspires to be chosen presidential candidate for the PLD party. Domínguez Brito had prosecuted Bautista from 2014-2015, but the case was eventually filed for procedural issues when the case was heard in the Court of Appeals.
At the time, the file against the senator for alleged acts of corruption was definitively shelved. Felix Bautista was accused, along with several people, of illicit enrichment with state resources, influence peddling, tax evasion, washing and falsification of public and private documents, in a case quantified in more than 25 billion pesos in his condition Director General of the Office of Supervisory Engineers of State Works (OISOE). Bautista, who is secretary of the PLD Organization, is the second highest leader of the party linked to acts of corruption. Víctor Díaz Rúa requested a license as finance secretary after being charged in the Odebrecht case.
Read more:
US Treasury
US Embassy
El Caribe
El Dia
13 June 2018
