SANTO DOMINGO.- A judge of the Federal Court of Puerto Rico, suspended without a date to hear and decide whether or not to accept the plea agreement signed between the Federal Prosecutor’s Office and César Emilio Peralta, known as “Caesar the Abuser”who admitted to having trafficked large shipments of drugs from the Dominican Republic to that country.
The magistrate adopted his decision after accepting a request from the defense of “César the Abuser” who requested that the complete transcript of the 2022 hearing be prepared and delivered, when the accused pleaded guilty, which is necessary to demonstrate that his client admitted the facts consciously and voluntarily.
Meanwhile, in the agreement signed between César the Abuser and the Federal Prosecutor’s Office, a sentence of ten years in prison is requested, after the admission of guilt for drug trafficking crimes and for offering information about the drug trafficking network that operated between the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Mexico, Venezuela and Colombia.
The Prosecutor’s Office has also asked the judge to order the confiscation of assets in favor of Puerto Rico, including the businesses Flow Gallery Lounge, Al Panino and Peralta Investment, SA, used to commit the crimes, and properties located in the Dominican Republic.
Currently, César Emilio Peralta is being held in the Bayamón prison, awaiting the ruling of the federal court on the agreement with the Prosecutor’s Office, who is more than three years after his entry into that prison.
According to the file, federal authorities indicate that Peralta led a transnational criminal organization that received shipments of cocaine from Colombia and Venezuela, destined for Puerto Rico and the United States.
Likewise, he coordinated large-scale money laundering operations, sending illicit profits to the Dominican Republic and Colombia.
The court document indicates that Peralta was linked to drug trafficking since 1997, and that he used part of his resources to bribe police and Dominican officials, in order to avoid arrests, judicial processes and seizures.
According to the indictment of the Federal Prosecutor’s Office, which covers events that occurred between 2007 and June 2017, Peralta conspired with other people to import more than five kilograms of cocaine into the customs territory of the United States.
The accused left the Dominican Republic on a yacht at the end of 2019, after discovering an investigation against him to carry out his arrest. However, he was arrested in Colombia in December of that same year.
Drug trafficker César Emilio Peralta, alias “César El Abusador,” maintained alliances with José David Figueroa Agosto to traffic drugs to Puerto Rico, with whom he had illicit businesses until 2009. That same year, Dominican authorities dismantled the Puerto Rican kingpin’s network, beginning a persecution that culminated with his arrest in Puerto Rico in 2010.
