NewsWhore
02-18-2010, 05:50 PM
El Dia reports today that the state prosecutors have yet to charge any government figure for enabling fugitive drug baron Jose David Figueroa Agosto to operate freely in the DR for around 10 years. He escaped from jail in Puerto Rico in 1999 and was known to have relocated to the DR where he operated with relative freedom until 4 October 2009, when he "escaped" from the authorities while being pursued.
The newspaper reports: "If in order to operate with so much freedom during his 10 years in the DR, fugitive Jose David Figueroa Agosto equipped himself with a protection structure at the level of authorities, it is still intact, as has happened with his network of drug traffickers that has eluded persecution".
The newspaper says that the only arrests have been of people said to have served as fronts and money launderers for Figueroa.
The newspaper says that on 5 September 2001 he was arrested using the name of Felipe Rodriguez de la Rosa but despite the authorities knowing that he was a major drug dealer in the network that then was headed by Wilfredo Andujar Guzman (alias El Amarillo, who was extradited to the US in 2002), he was freed 17 days later without charges.
It mentions that when it comes to the protection he had received, the only officially reported link is to murdered former colonel Jose Amado Gonzalez Gonzalez, whose connection to Figueroa was only revealed after he was murdered on 24 December.
Another key figure in the network, Omar Antigua Polanco was also murdered recently, in the Carrefour supermarket parking lot. The newspaper says that others have also managed to "spectacularly escape" from the authorities, including Ramon Antonio del Rosario Puente (Alias Tono Lena) and a plantain exporter where the original case files against Figueroa Agosto was found on the farm location. The files should have been at National Drug Control Department headquarters.
Two other people who were identified as close aides of Figueroa Agosto and who are fugitives from justice are Ramon Riva Zapata and Francisco Solano de los Santos, who operated from La Romana, which was known to be center of operations for many drug shipments.
More... (http://www.dr1.com/index.html#9)
The newspaper reports: "If in order to operate with so much freedom during his 10 years in the DR, fugitive Jose David Figueroa Agosto equipped himself with a protection structure at the level of authorities, it is still intact, as has happened with his network of drug traffickers that has eluded persecution".
The newspaper says that the only arrests have been of people said to have served as fronts and money launderers for Figueroa.
The newspaper says that on 5 September 2001 he was arrested using the name of Felipe Rodriguez de la Rosa but despite the authorities knowing that he was a major drug dealer in the network that then was headed by Wilfredo Andujar Guzman (alias El Amarillo, who was extradited to the US in 2002), he was freed 17 days later without charges.
It mentions that when it comes to the protection he had received, the only officially reported link is to murdered former colonel Jose Amado Gonzalez Gonzalez, whose connection to Figueroa was only revealed after he was murdered on 24 December.
Another key figure in the network, Omar Antigua Polanco was also murdered recently, in the Carrefour supermarket parking lot. The newspaper says that others have also managed to "spectacularly escape" from the authorities, including Ramon Antonio del Rosario Puente (Alias Tono Lena) and a plantain exporter where the original case files against Figueroa Agosto was found on the farm location. The files should have been at National Drug Control Department headquarters.
Two other people who were identified as close aides of Figueroa Agosto and who are fugitives from justice are Ramon Riva Zapata and Francisco Solano de los Santos, who operated from La Romana, which was known to be center of operations for many drug shipments.
More... (http://www.dr1.com/index.html#9)