The story had been making the rounds of social media for months. Now documents have been made public revealing the modus operandi and the persons involved in a new major corruption case against officials and private person associates dating to the Medina administration days.
Recently, Judge Kenya Romero ordered the Superintendence of Banks, Securities, Insurance, the Taxes Agency (DGII) and the Institute for the Development of Cooperative Credit (IDECOOP) to provide the Public Prosecutors Office (Pepca) director Wilson Camacho the reports and tax information needed to advance for the investigation.
This so far is the biggest in Dominican history with over RD$200 billion in all its scope, reports Eduardo Sánchez Tolentino (El Piro) for Somos Pueblo TV. The investigation is based on a preliminary report issued by the Controller General Office in September 2021 with fraudulent payments for expropriation for RD$14 billion, including payment of RD$12 billion from January to July 2022, the final six months of the Medina administration. Acento reports that 209 personas (individuals and companies) are under investigation.
The investigations look into the scheme whereby the Minister of Hacienda Donald Guerrero would have orchestrated plans to pay persons with deadbeat expropriations and other stagnated government cases for a hefty commission – reportedly more than 50%. The persons who had given up on collecting the money due to them from the state acquiesced to the deals.
Pepca says an interinstitutional network carried out multiple fraudulent operations under a scheme orchestrated from the Ministry of Hacienda under Donald Guerrero.
Diario Libre reports that many of the companies that cashed in from January to July 2020 had been incorporated in January 2020. By January, polls were showing that a loss by the ruling party candidate in the presidential elections was highly probable.
Somos Pueblo says that several high profile persons are mentioned in the case, including politicians and affluent private persons. Mentioned are: Donald Guerrero, Simón Lizardo Mézquita, Ramón (Mimilo) Jiménez and Ángel Lockward.
Somos Pueblo says that the Ministry of Hacienda investigation has ties to the Medusa Case that is just starting to be heard in Dominican courts and involves former attorney general Jean Alain Rodriguez.
Donald Guerrero lawyers had requested that the investigation findings be shared with their client. This was rejected by the Attorney General Office in April 2022.
Several media and muckraking YouTube programs have been giving insights into the case.
Follow the case in Spanish:
Listin Diario
El Dia
Diario Libre
Somos Pueblo TV
Somos Pueblo TV
Las Felicitaciones de Freddy Ortiz
Acento
Diario Libre
29 August 2022