Prosecutors requested a year of preventive imprisonment against the security of former President Danilo Medina, Army Major General Adams Cáceres Silvestre. On Monday, the Public Prosecutor’s Office requested one year of preventive imprisonment against Cáceres and four others arrested in Operation Coral. The case will be heard in court on Wednesday, 28 April 2021.
Others accused in the corruption ring are Cáceres’ girl friend Rossy Maybelline Guzman Sánchez (an evangelical church pastor), her son Tanner Antonio Flete Guzmán, Alejandro Jose Montero Cruz, Raul Alejandro Giron and Eric Daniel Pereyra Nuñez.
The prosecutors ask the case be declared complex and presented a file with more than 200 pages of evidence, Mirna Ortiz, coordinator of litigation for the Specialized Prosecutor’s Office for the Prosecution of Administrative Corruption (Pepca), told journalists, as reported by N Digital.
Ortiz said that they have been “months” gathering evidence to develop a conclusive case. The case was first publicly known when investigative journalist Nuria Piera revealed details on the growing wealth of Major General Adams Caceres and pastor Rossy Guzman.
The prosecutors do not rule out the possibility that more people be linked to the alleged corruption ring in the due course of the investigations.
The group arrested in Operation Coral is charged with the crimes of association of criminals, fraud against the Dominican state, a coalition of officials, falsification of public documents, laundering of assets derived from acts of corruption and illegal possession and carrying of firearms.
The accused are being held at the Ciudad Nueva detention center (CAPLIP-2).
As part of “Operation Coral”, the Public Prosecutor’s Office carried out on Saturday a total of 27 raids in the National District and the provinces of Santo Domingo, San Pedro de Macoris, Monte Plata and Samana.
According to data from the Public Ministry, the Army major general who was the director of the Presidential Security Corps 2012-2020, during the government of Danilo Medina, handled transactions now under investigation for more than three billion pesos.
The prosecutors accuse Cáceres Silvestre of unjustified and illicit enrichment, in addition to the fact that he has made fraudulent statements in his sworn statements.
The prosecutors presented the modus operandi of the accused when requesting the year of preventive custody. The ring operated by taking major cut of payments made to military and police on the payrolls of the Tourism Specialized Corps (Cetur) and the Specialized Corps of the Presidency (Cusep), in addition to cuts for payment of diet allotments, fuel allotments and intelligence allotments. The cuts were funneled to the members of the organization. The ring also benefited from cuotas the military and police were obliged to pay to fixed accounts.
The anti-administrative prosecutors at Pepca are investigating the companies: Unica Real State e Inversiones SRL, Asociación Campesina Madre Tierra, CSNA Universo Empresarial SRL, Aldom Glass Aluminium SRL, Randa International Company EIRL and RG&S Soluciones Financieras SRL for their ties to the accused in the Operation Coral.
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26 April 2021