One of 3 killed in torched pickup truck was a feared hired killier

Santo Domingo.- For the National Police it was relatively easy to identify the third victim in last week’s triple murder whose bodies were found in a torched pickup truck in San Cristobal, because his prints were already on record from several gangland style killings linked to drug trafficking.

His name didn’t surprise Police Chief Manuel Castro either, because he first learned of him as a fugitive when he was Police commander at La Romana (east), where he was known as one of the region’s most feared criminals.

Juan Félix Cordero Febles (Copelin) was wanted on suspicion he headed a ring of hired killers which worked for at least two drug trafficking networks entrenched in the eastern region.

"Niño Pata Corta"

He allegedly double-crossed his former boss, Alfredo Rodríguez ("Niño Pata Corta") who was murdered by a rival gang in March 2010, charges he denied.

Rodríguez was said to be one of the leading Dominican figures in the east region’s drug trafficking underworld. He was killed along with his associate, Juan Arturo Donastorg, during a shootout in a sugar field at the town of Yaguate.

Cordero Febles was Rodriguez’s bodyguard and was in the back of the vehicle, but "miraculously" escaped without a scratch.

The authorities, especially of La Romana, have been on the lookout ever since because his name was often linked to execution style murders.

He was reportedly ordered to murder a relative of La Romana Prosecutor José Antonio Polanco in April, but didn’t carry it through and even notified the official.