Saint Dominic.-The man accused of being the leader of the network that was responsible for the collection and attempted shipment to Belgium of the cache of 9.8 tons of cocaine seized last December had been extradited in 2016 from Colombia to the Dominican Republic to be prosecuted for drug trafficking and the murder of an agent of the National Drug Control Directorate (DNCD).
However, he was the beneficiary of a “no place” in 2018 by the Fifth Investigative Court of the National District.
José Nicolás Castillo Hart (alias El Gordo) was linked to one of the drug trafficking structures in the Eastern region and was also being prosecuted for the murder of Army Sergeant Raymond Toribio García in 2011, who was assigned to the DNCD.
The incident occurred at 4:20 in the morning on December 9, 2011, on San Vicente de Paúl Avenue, a short distance from a nightclub. Castillo Hart had left for the United States and from there traveled to Colombia, where he was arrested by Interpol.
Now he is credited with being one of the leaders of the network that was in charge of collecting the drugs that arrived in Dominican territory from Colombia through Bayahíbe, La Romana and Pedernales and organized the attempted transfer to Belgium, an action that was prevented by an operation of the DNCD in the Caucedo Multimodal Port.
The accused was arrested during raids carried out by the Public Ministry over the weekend in which 89 prosecutors and 564 special agents participated, in the operation that was called “Pantera 7.”
Coercion
The Public Ministry requested 18 months of coercive measures against Castillo Hart and six other defendants, noting that in the next few hours it will do the same against other arrested persons.
In addition to the alleged ringleader, preventive detention was requested as a measure of coercion against Nelson Neftalí Mercedes Lugo, Enrique José Luis Brito, Enriquillo Luis Brito, José Dulvi Jesús de los Santos, Cristián Rayner Canela Aybar and Winston Armando Tejera.
The Public Ministry reported that in the course of the investigation, evidence has been collected that shows that the 9,587 packages weighing 9,889 kilos of cocaine were brought to the Dominican Republic from Colombia by sea in the months prior to December 2024.
In addition, the criminal organization captured several employees of the Multimodal Port of Caucedo, who contributed to the entry of the cargo to the terminal aboard container number FFAU4542281.
The investigations indicate that the network operates the container transport companies Grasswey Group SRL and GWG Transport, which they used for international drug trafficking.
Investigation
The launch of Operation Pantera 7 against the members of the international drug trafficking and money laundering network, which seized more than 9.8 tons of cocaine, entailed an extensive and complex investigative process that included modern techniques, such as reconstruction of the crime scene using special software and diagrammatic analysis.
During the process, the Public Ministry and the National Drug Control Directorate, who from the beginning led the investigation, received the collaboration of the Central Directorate of Criminal Investigations for the processing of some important scenes for the investigation.
The surveys included analysis of hours of video surveillance to identify those responsible and the entry and exit of trucks from the Caucedo Multimodal Port before, during and after the operation that culminated in the seizure of the colossal stash of cocaine.
The investigation showed that, to guard the cargo, four men entered the port with assault weapons inside the empty container with the active complicity of employees of the aforementioned terminal who were associated with the criminal organization; as proven by the evidence collected in the investigation, some of which was delivered to the authorities by the Caucedo administration.
The Public Ministry assures that the operation consisted of removing the cocaine from container FFAU4542281, which had entered Caucedo, to transfer them to container HLBU9354083, destined for Belgium.
However, the operation was interrupted by the actions of the DNCD and the Public Ministry, and that is the reason why both containers contained packages at the time of the occupation.
The four armed men, with long weapons and hooded, kidnapped a truck driver who was dropping off a container. They tried to leave the terminal aboard the truck driven by the victim, but the DNCD, in coordination with port security, had already ordered the closure.
Seeing that they could not leave due to the deployment of the agencies, the members of the organization, known in that area as “Nailers”, escaped through a fence.
Process
—1— Logistics
To make room to enter the refrigerator container, as the container from Guatemala destined for Belgium is known, part of the load of bananas that it was carrying was removed.
—2— Deployment
During the deployment of Operation Pantera 7, 89 prosecutors and 564 agents from the Armed Forces and the DNCD participated.
Investigation was technical and complex
Ringleaders. The president of the National Drug Control Directorate (DNCD), Vice Admiral José Manuel Cabrera Ulloa, reported that two of the seven who will be prosecuted and who were detained during Operation Pantera 7, are the main collaborators of the criminal organization in the country. .
When answering questions from journalists during LA Semanal con la Prensa, Cabrera Ulloa indicated that this operation took time because it was a very technical investigation carried out in reverse to be able to track the movements of the truck that introduced the substance to the port terminal.
The head of the DNCD added that thanks to the documentation that was collected during the investigative process, the Dominican Republic is in a position to provide international legal support to the European countries to which the cache would be sent.
