Gang from PR, DR and Russia is busted up
Diario Libre
SD. The National Directorate for Drug Control (DNCD) reported that yesterday it busted up a gang of drug traffickers that sent drugs to Puerto Rico and arrested 29 persons, among them five Puerto Ricans, 17 Russian crew members of a ship used to transport forbidden substances overseas. In addition the DNCD seized luxurious villas, apartments, a ship, a launch and an airplane.
This is a gang made up of Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, and Colombians that received cocaine shipments from South America in order to later take them to the neighboring island and probably to other cities in the United States. The DNCD and the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) had been following this gang for a year and a half, according to Major General Rolando Rosado Mateo.
The head of the DNCD said that the arrest of the group came about during what he defined as "Operation Earthquake", carried out by the Tactical Division of Sensitive Investigations (DITIS), an elite unite that keeps up a permanent exchange of information with the DEA in order to provide monitoring and dismemberment to the networks of drug traffickers that use the Dominican Republic as their bridge to take cocaine and heroin to the United States.
The persons detained are the Puerto Ricans Omar Alberto Diaz Pavon, the owner of the villas and the chief of the network; Eduardo Larios Sanchez, the owner of the ship and the launch that were seized and where the DNCD and the Justice Department found 122 kilos of cocaine. Alez Ocasio, a pilot and owner of the airplane detained at the La Romana Airport, as well as Edwin Nieves Lozado, the contact person that the others used to buy the drugs are also under detention.
The others detained are the Colombian woman Leidy Yurani Arango Zapata and the Dominicans Cinthia Catherine Paula Valerio, Scarle Crisoris Gross de los Santos, Yanira Martinez Pion, Feliz Maria de la Cruz, and Genito Toribio Custodio. This last person arrested was in jail a year ago on charges related to 836 kilos of cocaine that were seized in the province of Santo Domingo, but a judge of that jurisdiction set him free.
"This network was dedicated to receiving drugs from South America, especially from Colombia, and storing them in the East and once there, they sent them to Puerto Rico. The money received for these transactions was used in the purchase of properties worth millions, especially villas and apartments," said Rosado Mateo in a statement issued by his press director Roberto Lebron.
The monitoring on this group allowed them to find out that two villas in Casa de Campo were used for their operations, one of them valued at a little more than US$20 million, and a second one where the drugs were found, ready to be taken on board the ship Carib Vision, a ship used to transport molasses, although the authorities feel that it is "a screen for the purpose of avoiding detection."
The DNCD acted together with magistrates Jose Antonio Polanco and Victor Henriquez Gil, who this Tuesday will receive the defendants and immediately request coercive measures, although still last night they were under interrogation at the DNCD headquarters in the capital, according to the report released by Lebron who showed the reporters the drugs and identified the detainees during a press conference.
Sinaloa cartel
In another order of business, the DNCD commander, Rolando Rosado Mateo, confirmed yesterday that in the territory of the Dominican Republic there is a presence of the Sinaloa cartel.
"That is true, things that have come up in investigation where we have arrested Mexicans that belong to the Sinaloa cartel and where their structures have been detected here and we are providing the necessary monitoring. We are working with the Mexican authorities in order to combat them," he said as he was interviewed at the Presidential Palace.
This is a gang made up of Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, and Colombians that received cocaine shipments from South America in order to later take them to the neighboring island and probably to other cities in the United States. The DNCD and the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) had been following this gang for a year and a half, according to Major General Rolando Rosado Mateo.
The head of the DNCD said that the arrest of the group came about during what he defined as "Operation Earthquake", carried out by the Tactical Division of Sensitive Investigations (DITIS), an elite unite that keeps up a permanent exchange of information with the DEA in order to provide monitoring and dismemberment to the networks of drug traffickers that use the Dominican Republic as their bridge to take cocaine and heroin to the United States.
The persons detained are the Puerto Ricans Omar Alberto Diaz Pavon, the owner of the villas and the chief of the network; Eduardo Larios Sanchez, the owner of the ship and the launch that were seized and where the DNCD and the Justice Department found 122 kilos of cocaine. Alez Ocasio, a pilot and owner of the airplane detained at the La Romana Airport, as well as Edwin Nieves Lozado, the contact person that the others used to buy the drugs are also under detention.
The others detained are the Colombian woman Leidy Yurani Arango Zapata and the Dominicans Cinthia Catherine Paula Valerio, Scarle Crisoris Gross de los Santos, Yanira Martinez Pion, Feliz Maria de la Cruz, and Genito Toribio Custodio. This last person arrested was in jail a year ago on charges related to 836 kilos of cocaine that were seized in the province of Santo Domingo, but a judge of that jurisdiction set him free.
"This network was dedicated to receiving drugs from South America, especially from Colombia, and storing them in the East and once there, they sent them to Puerto Rico. The money received for these transactions was used in the purchase of properties worth millions, especially villas and apartments," said Rosado Mateo in a statement issued by his press director Roberto Lebron.
The monitoring on this group allowed them to find out that two villas in Casa de Campo were used for their operations, one of them valued at a little more than US$20 million, and a second one where the drugs were found, ready to be taken on board the ship Carib Vision, a ship used to transport molasses, although the authorities feel that it is "a screen for the purpose of avoiding detection."
The DNCD acted together with magistrates Jose Antonio Polanco and Victor Henriquez Gil, who this Tuesday will receive the defendants and immediately request coercive measures, although still last night they were under interrogation at the DNCD headquarters in the capital, according to the report released by Lebron who showed the reporters the drugs and identified the detainees during a press conference.
Sinaloa cartel
In another order of business, the DNCD commander, Rolando Rosado Mateo, confirmed yesterday that in the territory of the Dominican Republic there is a presence of the Sinaloa cartel.
"That is true, things that have come up in investigation where we have arrested Mexicans that belong to the Sinaloa cartel and where their structures have been detected here and we are providing the necessary monitoring. We are working with the Mexican authorities in order to combat them," he said as he was interviewed at the Presidential Palace.
Diario Libre
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