Dominican Republic Police admit US$1.5M theft in raid on German cult

Santo Domingo.- Although the National Police and the Office of the Prosecutor reported having no evidence that two safes with more than R$60 million (US$1.5 million) were stolen by police officers during the bloody raid on residential La Mulata III, in Sosua, Puerto Plata, at least six of those under investigation have admitted their existence and several invoices and receipts for bank transactions in the millions have been seized from them, which they can’t explain, newspaper Listin Diario reports.

Captain Gerson Acosta Polanco is one of the officers who confirmed the safe’s existence, with allegedly 60 million pesos in euros and dollars, according to sources close to the investigation.

Under interrogation Police Council report which recommended withdrawals and cancellations of 14 officers and enlisted men who participated in the case, a copy of which has the captain said he saw Polanco Acosta when the lieutenants "Nilson Encarnacion Peña and Stalin Castillo Basora, and sergeant Pedro Antonio Hernandez, aka Maceta, carried away the two safes through the kitchen door of the residence of German national Peter Brunck, and got on a Forensic Police van driven by lieutenant Juan Maria Toribio and accompanied by the also lieutenant Sandy Ramon Ferreira."

The officer said the latter two went from Sosua to Puerto Plata’s Precinct with the safes, with Castillo and Hernandez staying behind.

According to Acosta, "the safes were broken into and the contents stolen by Lieutenant Stalin, a member of the Criminal Investigation Department (Dicrim), who worked in La Vega."

Acosta says he then met with Castillo in Puerto Plata and began to talk about the case. “He then told me he was angry because he "had been given just 20,000 pesos, and that all the others divvied up enough money to buy SUVs.”

One of the safes, the Police report said, was busted open in the town of Imbert, and from there the agents returned with watches, jewelry and money to buy SUVs. He revealed that a first lieutenant named Sanchez stole a watch and a gun, but then when the investigation began took the watch to the guard house at Sosua, to be delivered to the prosecutor in Puerto Plata province, but kept the gun.

In their statements, the officer said Toribio swiped an I-Pad and other items from the house of the Germans and that the officer told one of his colleagues who took part in the raid to "learn to steal like him."