“Inexplicably set free” Colombian back to jail on drug charges

SANTO DOMINGO. – A National District judge Wednesday night sent three Colombians and two Dominicans to spend one year in prison to await trial, charged trafficking drugs to Europe, mostly Spain.

Judge Alejandro Vargas was shown enough evidence to send Néstor Castañeda Peña, Henry Toro Pedroza y Alejandro Víctor de la Cruz Méndez to La Victoria prison, and María del Carmen Padilla and Ana Lucía Advincola to the jail at Najao.

The Drugs Control Agency (DNCD) said Castañeda heads the Colombian narcotics trafficking ring and had been serving an 8-year sentence on money laundering since last April, but “was inexplicably set free.” It said the foreigner had been detained with US$208,500 and RD$540,000, whose origin he couldn’t explain.

It adds that the ring operated out of house # 97, Canoabo street, in the capital’s exclusive sector Los Cacicazgos “It’s a ring which had taken root for a good time in the country, where it received cocaine from Colombia to then prepare suitcases with the drug and send it abroad.”