Independence. – The Collegiate Court of Jimaní sentenced the main members of an aggravated illicit migrant trafficking network dismantled with Operation Iguana to 15 and 10 years in prison.
These are Roberto Méndez Pérez and Johan Rosario Castillo who were sentenced to 10 years in prison, while Delson Manuel Medina Díaz, Juan Mateo Feliciano and Quelinton Eduardo Volquez Guzmán were sentenced to 15 years.
In addition, everyone must pay a fine of 150 minimum wages.
In the case of Deivi Novas Reyes and Dominga Guzmán, the court issued an acquittal sentence.
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The trial prosecutors Aleika Almonte, Jhensy Víctor and Miguel Crucey, from the specialized agencies against Illicit Migrant Smuggling and Human Trafficking (PETT) and the Prosecution of Administrative Corruption (Pepca), provided different elements of evidence that were accepted as good and valid by judges Alejandro Antonio García Cruz, Elaine del Pilar Lluberes and Freidy Hernández White, who handed down the conviction.
The PETT, headed by the court attorney general Yoanna Bejarán Álvarez, developed Operation Iguana in 2022 with nine simultaneous raids in municipalities of the Independencia, Bahoruco and Pedernales provinces, through which this network that used the Dominican border was dismantled. Haiti as a center of operations.
Evidence
During the raids, the Public Ministry arrested the accused and seized as evidence seven vehicles, 127 passports of foreign citizens, approximately 116 thousand pesos and 383 dollars, hundreds of documents and a 9 mm caliber firearm.
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The Public Ministry, with the support of the Investigation Department of the General Directorate of Immigration, began the criminal investigation of this case in December 2021 against the members of the network, managing to obtain evidence that links them to illicit trafficking. aggravated trafficking of migrants and kidnapping of two women and two girls of Cuban nationality, as well as other acts of illicit trafficking of migrants.
About case
The accusatory file indicates that the defendants resorted to threats and blackmail to obtain bribes.
Likewise, they deprived of their freedom and kept in captivity the illicitly trafficked persons until they received the payment required for the release of the detained or kidnapped persons, even resorting to threats to receive the payments.
The group was accused of violating Law 137-03 on Illicit Migrant Smuggling and Human Trafficking, the Dominican Penal Code, Law 53-07 on High-Tech Crimes and Crimes, Law 631-16 for the Control and Regulation of Weapons, Ammunition and Related Materials, and the Code for the Protection and Fundamental Rights of Children and Adolescents (Law 136-03), as well as Law 583 on Kidnapping.
Through a press release, the Public Ministry highlights the importance of sanctions against these serious crimes that mainly affect people in vulnerable conditions, the majority of them women, children and adolescents.
