National Drug Control Department (DNCD) chief, Major General Rolando Rosado Mateo, says that the organization has a fund for encouraging civilian informants who could help the agency instigate a drug sting. The DNCD says in 2011, the institution disbursed more than RD$60 million of funds under the Program for Compensation and Incentives that also benefits anti-narcotics agents, as reported in El Dia. Rosado was speaking on La Nota Diferente Las Cuentas Claras radio talk show.

Rosado said that the incentives program was created to encourage good behavior and reward agents for good work. He denied that drug trafficking was on the rise in the Dominican Republic. "There is the perception that there is a massive trafficking of narcotics because there have been massive confiscations. Instead, the agency responds to very different ethical criteria compared to those in the past," he said. He said drug agents have been trained by the best of the UK Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA), the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and the Colombian police. He said that the agents have learned to speak the language of the drug traffickers and decipher the code used for transshipment of drugs.

He said that due to the joint and coordinated work with agencies in the Netherlands, UK, France, Spain and the US, drug traffickers have relocated a good part of their operations that were carried out in the Greater Antilles to the Lesser Antilles. He mentioned close surveillance of air and sea operations. But he said that what is most disconcerting is when after the anti-drug agency working for months and even years to make a capture, a judge favors the trafficker with a lenient decision.

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