Traffickers wage bloody war for extradited kingpin’s turf

SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic.- Two suspected drug traffickers wage an all out war for the East region "vacancy" left by alleged kingpin Ramon Antonio del Rosario Puente ‘Toño Leña’, extradited to Puerto Rico last year.

This rival gangs’ bloody battle, allegedly headed by Jesús Pascual Cabrera Ruiz and Winston Rizik Rodriguez ‘El Gallero’, has already claimed the lives of several people, and according to National Police chief Jose A. Polanco, their dispute seeks control of the ??La Romana region.

"As to Pascual Cabrera, a criminal who leads a group of thugs in the east, the offender is in conflict over the geographical area also used by another criminal called ‘Rizik El Gallero’, a dispute in which they’ve caused several deaths," Polanco said.

He said both men have been arrested, with Ruiz held for six months in a Puerto Rico prison, while Rizik was indicted twice.

He noted however that in his view, judges have understood that prosecutors haven’t presented enough evidence to hold them.

Suspected hit men

Police have already arrested three of the gangs’ alleged hitmen’’; Juan Carlos Jimenez (Marucha or Mochy), Richard Bolivar Encarnacion, (Ricardo Manga Larga), and one known only as Boli, and killed two others, Basilio Perez Cuevas and / or Jose Perez Cuevas (El Mayor) and Kelvin Antonio Ramirez, all in connection with alleged contract murders of seven people ordered by Cabrera.