More than three months after the million-dollar fraud against the government social aid program Supérate was revealed, the investigative bodies headed by the Attorney General’s Office have failed to establish the main perpetrators of the event or the connection between those involved.
To date, some 27 people have been prosecuted since last February, the date on which it was reported that more than 80,000 thousand beneficiaries of the program had had their cards cloned, which were later used in establishments during night hours not allowed for consumption. The amount of the fraud was estimated at more than 100 million pesos.
When consulted in this regard, the Attorney General’s Office reported that, until the beginning of June, the 27 people prosecuted have been for cloning, some as authors and others as accomplices, which is the case of the owners of colmados who have been subjected, some of whom keep preventive prison.
“We do not rule out the structure, but it is being investigated and we cannot offer more details,” the Attorney General’s Office reported at the request of this newspaper.
The fraud to overcome was denounced in the middle of last March, when the Administrator of Social Subsidies (Adess) confirmed the case of six grocery store owners where several irregular consumer transactions were made with the program card. By then, they reported that they had suspended more than 80 colmados from their Social Supply Network (RAS), for similar reasons.
One of the points pointed out on that occasion was the fact that the majority of card transactions were made in the early hours of the morning, despite the fact that there was an express provision not to authorize consumption between 10:00 at night and 7:00 in the morning.
The National Police and Adess itself have also reported the arrest of several people, on different occasions, for having packages of cards with them that, after the tests, have confirmed that they have the Get Over Yourself codes.
Last May, the director of the Supérate Program, Gloria Reyes, declared before the Senate of the Republic that the fraud reached some 95,000 cards by then.
After public knowledge of the fraud, in mid-March a working table was formed between the Attorney General’s Office, the Police, the Social Policy Cabinet, Adess and Supérate to deepen the investigations of the fraud.
Those arrested since March
In mid-March, the Judicial Office of Permanent Attention Services of Santo Domingo Este imposed three months of preventive detention on Messrs. Ydalisis Maribel López, Yanilda Altagracia Rodríguez Herrera and Jonathan Martínez. It also imposed an economic guarantee on Bernardo Santiago Hernández Concepción and Juana Felicia Guillén and Odalia Florentino.
The group is accused of allowing irregular transactions with the Supérate card in grocery stores that they managed or owned.
At the end of the same month of March, a Barahona judge also imposed one year of preventive detention against Hansel Arturo Feliz, Francisco Andrés Sánchez de la Rosa, Andy Reimi Ubiera and Euris Bautista Sánchez, from whom the National Police had seized 103 cards from the referred program.
On April 25, the arrest of another five people linked to the cloning of the cards was reported. 558 cards with electromagnetic tapes were seized from three of the detainees, which, once analyzed, were found to have the Supérate codes, according to information provided at the time. The men, identified as Yefri José Féliz Rodríguez, David Then Russel and Raudi Beltrán Eleuterio, were sentenced to six months in preventive detention by a Monte Plata judge.
Also last May, the arrest of Jorge de la Cruz, Fernando Bonilla Pérez and Darío Manuel Pichardo was reported, on whom 504 cards from the Supérate program were found in the Cristo Rey sector of the National District, according to a police note.
