Dominican officers sought to take over Puerto Rican kingpin’s drug empire
Santo Domingo. – The National Drugs Control Agency (DNCD) yesterday affirmed that a group of officers discharged from their institutions, four colonels, two majors and four lieutenants among them, sought to form a ring of narcotics traffickers to replace the Puerto Rican kingpin Jose Figueroa Agosto’s network.
DNCD spokesman Ramon A. Rodriguez said the officers were part of a group of 28 military, police and agents assigned to Las Americas International Airport (AILA), where they helped ship cocaine and heroin to Puerto Rico.
The colonels Efrén Valera Sosa had been dishonorably discharged; Gustavo Amable Feliz and Juan Alberto Smith were forced to retire, while Adalberto Castillo Perez had been sanctioned with 10 days under arrest.
The discharged majors and lieutenants who Rodriguez said would’ve replaced Figueroa’s network are Alex Sanchez Familia and Franklin Fulcar Perez, as well as the lieutenants Danilo Ginebra Simone, Carmelo Laureano Contreras, Biolenny Lopez Perez and Wilson A. Lopez, while others of the rank were transferred from the DNCD and the Airport Security Corp (CESA), back to their units.
They were linked to the 145 kilos of cocaine seized December 2 in the AILA, in a plane of the company Air Cargo Carriers, minutes before taking off to Puerto Rico.
The U.S. pilots Kevin Henson Kranz and Chistopher Schmidt were detained in the case.