Medellin, Colombia.-Just as it happened with Pablo Escobar in Colombia, also in the Dominican Republic and other countries in the region, the big drug traffickers allowed themselves to be seduced by luxury, the symbolic power of heritage and the false legitimacy that material goods provide.
Mansions, estates, yachts, watches, high-value apartments and tracts of land became for years the most effective way to launder money and ensure the economic survival of organized crime.
One of the examples is the La Manuela hacienda, located in the Guatapé area, in Medallín, today under the custody of the Colombian State and converted into a tourist spot visible from the Peñol reservoir. Although only ruins remain today, it was once one of Escobar’s many ostentatious private properties.
The farm had a swimming pool, tennis courts, a soccer field that also functioned as a heliport, stables, a guest house, a dock for seaplanes, special access, trees brought from different parts of the world and permanent armed security. The main house was lavishly decorated and included its own nightclub.
In 1993, the complex was destroyed by the group Los Pepes (persecuted by Pablo Escobar), who placed nearly 200 kilos of TNT in the center of a fountain there, leaving it practically uninhabitable.
The heritage
For decades, when drug traffickers were arrested and served sentences, many managed to recover assets acquired with illicit money. That logic began to break with the creation of the figure of domain extinction, today in force in countries such as Colombia, Mexico, El Salvador, Peru and the Dominican Republic.
As explained by the jurist and dean of the Faculty of Humanities of the APEC University, Alejandro Moscoso Segarra, in the Dominican case this figure was introduced for the first time in the 2010 Constitution, which recognizes the right to property, but excludes illicitly acquired assets from constitutional protection. From there, the creation of a special law was ordered that regulates the procedure, the competent authorities and procedural guarantees.
It is important to note that this regulation incorporates essential principles of due process: right of defense, contradiction, publicity, motivation for decisions and protection of third-party purchasers in good faith.
The forfeiture of ownership is a legal figure of a patrimonial and autonomous nature, through which the State can declare the definitive loss of assets that have an illicit origin or purpose, without the need for a prior criminal conviction against the person who owns those assets.
Attack your finances
As Moscoso Segarra points out, “the fight against organized crime cannot be limited to imprisoning people; it must dismantle its economic structure.”
Drug seizures affect the immediate proceeds of crime; Forfeiture of ownership affects the cumulative result of the crime. Together, both tools seek to close the financial cycle of drug trafficking.
In the real estate sector this is especially relevant, since real estate has become one of the main vehicles for laundering money and giving the appearance of legality to illicit capital.
The case of La Manuela shows that seizing drugs or arresting people is not enough if the illicit capital has already been converted into assets.
In the last five years, Dominican authorities have doubled the amount of drugs seized compared to the previous 16 years.
Between August 2020 and October 2025, more than 159 thousand kilograms of narcotic substances were seized nationally, to which more than 67 thousand kilograms were seized in international operations.
During that period, more than 187,000 people were arrested and thousands of assets linked to drug trafficking and money laundering were seized, including vehicles, boats, aircraft, firearms, cash and real estate.
Before the existence of the domain forfeiture law, villas, estates, yachts, houses, apartments, luxury vehicles, watches and large areas of land had to be returned to people involved in criminal acts.
Tourism
140 thousand Dominicans.
They have visited Colombia, according to data from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. No visa is required to visit.
Interview.
Alejandro M. Segarra
What is La Manuela a reference for?
The Hacienda La Manuela is the benchmark that drug trafficking not only operates through networks of people, but through complex heritage infrastructures.
How does the Asset Forfeiture Law contribute as a barrier to criminals?
With the extinction process, this material base is destroyed by definitively depriving criminal organizations of the assets that were used to hide capital or launder money.
Can this figure act more effectively?
As it does not depend on a previous criminal conviction, this figure acts more effectively, dismantling the economic core on which criminal activity is based, even after those directly responsible have died.
Why is this legal figure important?
This legal figure is an important barrier since it is not limited to a specific confiscation, but rather prevents the reintegration of the property into the legal economy; extinction declares that the property right was never legitimate, closing the possibility of recovery.
Why is attacking heritage decisive compared to only sanctioning criminal conduct?
Analyzing it from the legal-criminal perspective, criminal conduct is replaceable; heritage no. Criminal structures survive the imprisonment or death of their leaders because they retain assets, financial flows and important assets.
What does it mean to attack the assets of drug traffickers?
Confronting heritage implies dismantling the business logic of organized crime, preventing these structures from reappearing as legal companies. The Domain Forfeiture Law breaks economic continuity, which is the true reason for the existence of criminal organizations.
