JCE halts fake weddings

[NewsWhore]

The Central Electoral Board (JCE), which is responsible for issuing all personal documents in the Dominican Republic, has called a halt to what it describes as "simulated weddings" in the major tourist resorts in the Punta Cana and Bavaro area on the east coast. The JCE decision was taken to prevent confusion for couples that participated in this kind of activity and then demanded marriage certificates from the local Civil Registry office. Last February, the magistrate in charge of the Administrative Chamber of the JCE, Roberto Rosario, described the operation as a "mafia" that acted in complicity with the hotels in Punta Cana. Apparently, they held massive marriage ceremonies for foreigners, which were really simulations, without official approval and offered within the tour packages. JCE officials talked to Diario Libre reporter Leoncio Compres and said that they had reached an agreement with hoteliers in the Bavaro and Punta Cana area to discontinue the celebration of these "simulated" weddings between foreigners, and that only ceremonies held before civil officials in Higuey or the newly-opened office in Veron would have any validity. According to the report, investigations showed that some people were under the impression that the simulated marriage was their legal wedding and these are the ones who sought their certificates from the Civil Registry Office. Investigators from the National Intelligence Division (DNI) allegedly turned up three ringleaders of the "mafia" that arranged the "weddings" and who issued the fake marriage certificates.

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