NewsWhore
02-07-2012, 03:30 PM
The National Drug Control Department (DNCD) reported that yesterday, Monday February 6, it busted a gang of drug traffickers that sent drugs to Puerto Rico and arrested 29 people, including five Puerto Ricans and 17 Russian crew members of a ship used to transport illegal substances overseas. In addition, the DNCD seized luxurious villas, apartments, a ship, a motor-launch and an airplane. This gang is made up of Puerto Ricans, Dominicans and Colombians who received cocaine shipments from South America to send to Puerto Rico and probably to other destinations in the United States. The DNCD and the US 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 monitor and dismantle the drug trafficking networks that use the Dominican Republic as their bridge to take cocaine and heroin to the United States.
The detainees are Puerto Ricans Omar Alberto Diaz Pavon, the owner of the villas and the alleged head of the network, and 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, and Edwin Nieves Lozado, the contact person whom the others used to buy the drugs are also under detention. The others are a Colombian woman, Leidy Yurani Arango Zapata and Dominicans Cinthia Catherine Paula Valerio, Scarle Crisoris Gross de los Santos, Yanira Martinez Pion, Feliz Maria de la Cruz, and Genito Toribio Custodio. The latter 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 for 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 of this group allowed them to find out that two villas in Casa de Campo were used for their operations, one of them valued at just over 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 believe that it was "a front for the purpose of avoiding detection." The DNCD acted together with magistrates Jose Antonio Polanco and Victor Henriquez Gil, who this Tuesday February 7 will immediately request coercive measures, although last night they were still 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.
More... (http://www.dr1.com/index.html#8)
The detainees are Puerto Ricans Omar Alberto Diaz Pavon, the owner of the villas and the alleged head of the network, and 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, and Edwin Nieves Lozado, the contact person whom the others used to buy the drugs are also under detention. The others are a Colombian woman, Leidy Yurani Arango Zapata and Dominicans Cinthia Catherine Paula Valerio, Scarle Crisoris Gross de los Santos, Yanira Martinez Pion, Feliz Maria de la Cruz, and Genito Toribio Custodio. The latter 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 for 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 of this group allowed them to find out that two villas in Casa de Campo were used for their operations, one of them valued at just over 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 believe that it was "a front for the purpose of avoiding detection." The DNCD acted together with magistrates Jose Antonio Polanco and Victor Henriquez Gil, who this Tuesday February 7 will immediately request coercive measures, although last night they were still 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.
More... (http://www.dr1.com/index.html#8)