Authorities dismantle network that spent US$50 million

SANTO DOMINGO. The National Drug Control Agency (DNCD) reported that over the weekend it had dismantled a network of drug traffickers that had invested more than US$50 million in the eastern region of the country, mostly in real estate, with the idea of laundering the money.

According to the DNCD, the network, in which the Colombian German Miguel Salgado Arroyo, now under arrest, is indicated to be one of the heads, acquired extensive properties in tourist projects and more than 100 apartments, luxury vehicles, and boats.

Together with Salgado Arroyo, the Colombian Gabriel Leon Soriano and the Dominican Amanda Conde Sosa were arrested last Friday as they travelled along San Anton Street at the corner of Isabel Aguiar, from the Libertador de Herrera.

The head of the DNCD, Rolando Rosado Mateo, said in a press release, that there were arrest warrants out on the alleged heads of the ring, Leon Soriano and Conde Sosa, numbered 013959, 013996 and 013995, respectively, issued by a court, since they were tied to a stash of 25 kilograms of cocaine seized on Thursday 19 August and the landing of a small aircraft which presumably carried drugs in 2009.

The DNCD assured reporters that this network of drug trafficking also operated in Puerto Rico, Miami, Colombia and Venezuela. They used the country as a bridge to carry drugs to the United States.

The stash to which they are tied was to have been sold by five men in the Los Rosales sector of East Santo Domingo.

In the case, Tirson Bueno de la Crus, alias "Negro", 42; the Cuban naturalized US citizen Rigoberto Valdes, 65; Francisco Ariel Pacheco, 59; Catalino Rodriguez, alias Chicha, 43; and the Dominican, naturalized US citizen, Rafael Antonio Molina Reyes, also nicknames Chicha, were all arrested. The drugs were found in two cardboard boxes in the back seat of the Nissan Sentra, license plate A13336915, which Catalino Rodriguez was driving at the time of his arrest. Two of the men had served time on drug charges in the United States.

Aircraft landing in 2009

The three recently captured men are also tied to the landing of a Cessna 206 with a Venezuelan tail number, that had landed with a load of drug in the Batey El Higo in Higuey in November 2009 and in which it is believed the Colombians Pedro Gabriel Alonzo and Alexander Vasquez Gil, the pilots together with Wilkin Conde Sosa, the brother of Amanada, entered the country.

After the capture of the aircraft, another six persons were detained, among them, citizens from Colombia, Haiti, Mexico and the Dominican Republic.

According to the investigation by the DNCD, Salgado Arroyo is considered to be the person who directed the operation in which the airplane was caught. From the landing of the airplane, the drug agency activated the search for the Colombian, carrying out searches in the Abel I Tower in the Cacicazgos and in the Residential Condominium Guillermo Antonio IV, where the wife and the mistress of the Colombian lived, respectively.

With the arrest of German Miguel Salgado Arroyo, there was US$962 dollars in different denominations, a Colombian "cédula" and driver's license seized; from Gabriel Leon Soriano, an identification card from the Pilots University of Colombia with the number 79553896, also in his name, besides the sum of three dollars and RD$250; while from the Dominican Amanda Conde Sosa a cédula""-the personal identification card and voter registration-with her name was seized along with a card to receive remittances from overseas, the sum of RD$220 and a black bag with cosmetics and some jewelry.

The persons arrested in the case of the Cessna 206, tail number YV1133, were Pedro Gabriel Alonzo and Alexander Vasquez Gil, both Colombian and who were are believed to be the pilots, and Dominicans Wilkin Conde Sosa and Jorge Castillo (alias El Grande), the Haitian William Boye (alias La Rata), and the Colombians Jose Luis M. and Eutimio Viva Escalante.

The following day in a hotel on Conde Street in the National District, the Colombian Oscar Rojas and the Mexican Daniel Colorado Gonzalez, who were also tied to the case of the seized aircraft, were arrested.

Diario Libre