Insurance Superintendent Euclides Gutierrez Feliz said that as of Tuesday, police officers had returned 85 of the estimated 300 vehicles that are unlawfully in their possession. In a recent controversy, it emerged that the police force had distributed recovered stolen vehicles among its officers without notifying the proprietors. Following Police Chief Major Perez Sanchez’s request that these vehicles be returned, it appears that those officers who benefited from the wrongful use of the vehicles and turn them in will not be penalized, which has been motive for indignation among citizens. Police chief has said this was a normal practice in the Police and would not prosecute those who return the vehicles.
Euclides Gutierrez Feliz, Insurance Superintendent, said that the cases of the returned vehicles would be forwarded to the corresponding insurance companies, who could then bring the cases to justice. Gutierrez expressed to El Caribe his agreement that the police and government officials who do not hand over the vehicles have charges brought against them for complicity to theft. The 72-hour deadline given for the return of the vehicles has already expired.
The cars and SUVs were turned in when the new superintendent complied with a petition to this end, received from the association of insurance companies that first reported the irregularity. Previously, a similar petition of the companies had gone unheeded by Gutierrez’s predecessor.
Attorney General Francisco Dominguez Brito said on the Hoy Mismo TV program yesterday that each case would have to be looked into individually to establish responsibility. He spoke of the difference between a vehicle that a police officer employed for his personal use and another that was used in the course of police duty. The AG also mentioned the distinction between those vehicles that have been reported stolen by the owners and recovered by police agents, and those that were confiscated by the police from gangs that use stolen vehicles to commit crimes. Dominguez Brito is of the opinion that there should be penalties levied, even if only applied administratively. As reported in the Listin Diario, he said the fault is even more serious in the cases of vehicles being given to girlfriends of police officers. “There is an obligation to establish responsibility for the use of these vehicles, when the legitimate owners were not notified of their recovery,” Dominguez Brito told the Listin.
Furthermore, he said that the problem is made more complex by the fact that many of the vehicles may have been part of insurance fraud. He said there are criminal gangs who invent thefts so that the owners may collect on the full insurance.
Diario Libre reports the arrest and investigation of the head of the police department that deals with the recovery of the vehicles, Captain Cordino Espino. The newspaper says the documents that establish who had which vehicle are missing and that the department heads from 1999 to date are being investigated. The vice-president of the Dominican Chamber of Insurance Companies, Miguel Villaman, says that so far this year, of 279 stolen vehicles claimed for insurance, only 36 have been recovered. He indicated that more luxury SUVs than cars are stolen, even though of the one million vehicles in circulation, 80% are cars. He said this year 120 luxury SUVs have been stolen and 92 cars. Of the 85 vehicles returned by police officers, at least 30 are “jeepetas.”
President Fernandez said the moral crisis that affects Dominican society is so profound that police officers view their appropriation of stolen vehicles instead of returning them as normal. “That practice is part of the social decomposition framework the country is experiencing today and which is behind the increase in delinquency,” he said.