The Public Ministry of the Dominican Republic it has concentrated on dismantling the networks that traffic migrants, as evidenced in the recent Operations called Frontera and La Ruta.
Border Operation
It was on Sunday, February 26, that the Public Ministry carried out 16 raids where They found 24 immigrants, including men, pregnant women, children, and adolescents.who remained in the clandestine collection centers used by the criminal structure to later be transported by the different routes established to different provinces of the country.
Those arrested in Operation Border are: Eddy Rafael Cordero Villanueva and Osiris Rafael Estévez Fortuna, who have been identified as leaders of this network that traffics migrants from Haiti.
Elbio José Castillo Martínez, Hilario Antonio Gómez Paul, Santo Valerio Contreras, Anelby Susaña Guzmán, Jesús María Cerda Acosta, Anelsy Escarlex Cordero Núñez and María Rafaela Batista de Cordero.
read: “This is a political persecution,” say defendants in the Border case
As well as members of the Dominican Army, Second Lieutenant José Dolores Hernández Merejildo and Julio César Pujols Montero; Sergeant Major Rafael Contreras and Rafael Zabala Peña and Corporal Sandro Liranzo Javier.
According to the MP, the 15 accused of belonging to the alleged Haitian immigrant trafficking network dismantled in the so-called Border Operationthey took care documents, vehicles, motorcycles, firearms and ammunition.
In addition, he indicated that they also seized chargers for pistols, cash of different denominations (pesos, dollars and gourdes), cell phones, computers, as well as other “useful and relevant evidence related to smuggling of persons”.
Similarly, the accusing body added that according to the investigation carried out, the leaders and members of the network were dedicated to financing, facilitating and transporting migrants through motorcycles and buses in complicity with the military assigned to surveillance and control functions in that border area of the country.
See: Operation Border: They request preventive detention for those involved in immigrant smuggling
The route
The Special Prosecutor’s Office Against Migrant Smuggling and Human Trafficking (PETT), together with the Sánchez Ramírez Prosecutor’s Office, in coordination with the Specialized Division for Investigation against Migratory Crimes (DEIDEM), launched this Saturday, March 4, the Operation La Ruta, through which he dismantled a transnational organized crime network dedicated to the smuggling of migrants.
The operation arrested the investigated Juan Bautista García, Felipe Sánchez Vásquez, Williams Batista Peña, Brian Rosario Fernández, Manuel Castillo Coronado, Justino del Carmen Abreu Romero and Victoriano Aracena Tapia, who together with Henri Reyes Muñoz (fugitive), They headed this organized criminal network that used forged travel documents to smuggle migrants through the routes of Haiti, Panama, Colombia, Mexico, the Virgin Islands (Trinidad and Tobago) and Guatemala; having as final destination the entrance to the United States of America.
See: Operation Border: They request preventive detention for those involved in immigrant smuggling
For this transnational illegal trafficking operation, the members of this network charged amounts of up to 15,000.00 dollars for each migrant.
Upon being arrested in the 12 raids carried out in the provinces of La Vega, Espaillat, Sánchez Ramírez and Santiago, those investigated were seized with fraudulent passports, visas from different countries, vehicles, computers, cell phones, firearms and ammunition that prove their direct participation in this structure of organized crime.
People linked to criminal acts frequently used the services of this organization to leave the country and thus evade criminal prosecution.
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