The Deputy Minister of Migratory Management and Naturalization of the Ministry of Interior and Police, Juan Manuel Rosario, confirmed on Sunday, 10 September 2023 that numerous individuals have irregularly obtained Dominican nationality or documents without undergoing the regular channels.
“We managed to detect a huge number of foreigners who are walking around the world with Dominican passports without having exhausted the naturalization procedures,” he stressed in an interview on the television program “Esferas de Poder.”
He said unscrupulous people have sold documentation to foreigners who pass themselves off as being naturalized.
Rosario said he has information people have paid US$42,000 to get a Dominican passport and others have paid US$20,000 and US$25,000.
Passports in the Dominican Republic are responsibility of the Passports Agency. The first appointed director of the Passports Agency was removed, the present director’s administration has also been mired by reports of corruption.
Recently, the media covered the case of Bangladeshi Zeesan Ahmed, an Interpol top-listed fugitive for murder and possession of explosives, has used an irregularly-obtained Dominican passport. The Dominican authorities have not explained how Ahmed obtained the Dominican passport.
The Ministry of Interior & Police handles the issuing of Dominican naturalization. Rosario denied that recent cases of persons with Dominican passports passed through the naturalization process at the Ministry of Interior & Police.
In the three years of the Abinader administration, 682 persons have been naturalized, including 124 Cubans, 125 Venezuelans and 42 Haitians. The low number of Haitian being naturalized is because these must have documents from their country of origin. Since 2011 to date, 5,000 foreigners who have opted for Dominican nationality have been naturalized.
Read more in Spanish:
Listin Diario
The Daily Star
11 September 2023