Agents seized 279Ks of cocaine is operation left one smuggler dead

Santo Domingo. – The National Drugs Control Agency (DNCD) and the Navy announced Friday morning the confiscation of 279 kilos of cocaine, part of a haul thrown overboard by three men near Boca Chica on Thursday, when one them drowned after jumping in the water with his two companions.

The three men, two of them Venezuelan, were aboard a boat with two outboard motors that was pursued by the DNCD and the U.S. Coast Guard, and tried to dump the drug and escape.

The DNCD said the Dominican Abraham Aquino de la Cruz, a native of Barahona, drowned trying to escape, while foreigners Armando José Mendoza and Leonel Gilarte are being questioned at its headquarters.

DNCD spokesman Roberto Lebron said agents are still combing the waters to recover other bricks of the drug dumped overboard from the speedboat ‘Sol Playero’, taken the DNCD headquarters. "The detainees transported 35 bales on the vessel, of which only 10 were recovered.”