Despite clear evidence, judge released drug smugglers charged in Miami, official

SANTO DOMINGO. – The National Drugs Control Agency (DNCD) confirmed Wednesday that 4 of the 5 men charged with conspiracy to ship narcotics to the United States, mainly Florida and Puerto Rico, were arrested last December with 309 kilos of cocaine on the Santo Domingo-Saint Pedro highway case.

A temporary instruction what judge set those people free however, which in its view reveals "that after the work against organized crime is done, it’s laid to waste in certain instances," the DNCD said in statement.

The men facing drug trafficking charges in a Miami court were identified as Freddy Manuel Martinez, Miguel Espinal Angel Herrera, Roberto Antonio Mendoza Manzano, Felix Evangelista Sanchez Crispín and Carlos Rubén Morales Davila, the first four detained by the DNCD and the latter captured in Puerto Rico on Monday.

The DNCD also confirms the statement by the Florida South District Federal prosecutor, which unsealed the indictments against the group charged with smuggling cocaine from South America to U.S. territory, using Dominican Republic as a bridge. The first four were detained December 22 in a truck stop near Boca Chica.

The DNCD said Roy Francisco Sanchez Zamora, Roberto Antonio Ortiz Cordero, Juan Hilario Navarro Núñez and the Puerto Rican Sueheily Rodriguez Arroyo also belong to the group. Martinez, a native of La Romana, has a crime record for drug trafficking since August, 1987, while Ortiz Cordero figures in their system since July 2009.

DNCD spokesman Roberto Lebrón said the suspects, despite being determined that they formed part of a major international drug trafficking network, were released December 2010 by National District 2nd Instruction Court substitute judge Awilda Ines Reyes Beltré, whom also ruled against several prosecution requests for temporary incarceration in.

"The DNCD and the other agencies in the war on crime are doing their work, carrying out their strictly as the Executive instructs, but it seems that other components of other powers, which are decisive and determining, are doing something else," the official said.