2022News

Policemen linked to alleged drug “tumbe” in Barahona sent home to await trial

Esteban Armando Féliz Batista (Chatica) was released on bail. He is the Police corporal who allegedly was kidnapped to pressure him to return spoils from the sale of a drug shipment reportedly seized by police officers from drug traffickers in Villa Central, Barahona last August 2021.

In addition to the corporal, sergeant Oscar Andres Valentin Jimenez, the privates Ivan Feliz Volquez, Carlos David Pimentel Cuevas and captain Rafael Amaurys Medina Perez (Patu) were also released on bail.

The arrested are accused of keeping 400 kilos of cocaine seized from traffickers in August 2021.

Magistrate Daniel Medina, judge of the Instruction of the Judicial District of Barahona, varied the preventive custody measures imposed on the police officers under arrest in the alleged police drug corruption case. These were allowed to post bail for RD$100,000 and periodically appear in court.

The police agents were defended by the law firm Gómez Rubio y Asociados, headed by former prosecutor Yván Ariel Gómez Rubio, together with Eucebio Rocha Ferreras, Gilbert Matos, Amelia Esperanza Ledesma Agramonte and Melina Ledesma.

Gómez Rubio, together with the team of lawyers from his office is handling the technical defense of Captain Rafael Amauris Medina Pérez (Patú), Corporal Welni Féliz Batista, Juan Carlos Medina Méndez, Miguel Ángel Féliz Féliz Féliz, Oscar Andrés Valentín Jiménez, Yovanni Cuevas Gómez, Jorge Ramón Alcántara Urbáez, Iván Moisés Feliz Vólquez.

Listin Diario recalls in the story on the release that the alleged “tumbe” of drugs to drug traffickers did not have repercussions in the National Police until some weeks later when Corporal “Chatica” was “kidnapped” by police agents.

The “kidnapping” happened weeks before the then Southern Regional Director of the National Police, Major General Eduardo Alberto Then, was named the Director General of the police force by President Luis Abinader.

Read more in Spanish:
Listin Diario
DR1 News
DR1 News

16 March 2022