Dominican Republic’s east region shelters kingpins, assassins

Santo Domingo.- La Romana’s judicial district handles several major drug trafficking, contract killings and money laundering cases, linked to Dominican Republic’s most notorious kingpins, who resort to gangs of assassins as enforcers.

Even Casa de Campo, the region’s most upscale resort, as hasn’t been spared, with posh villas often used to plan criminal operations, some even for tortures.

Notorious cases

Among the notorious cases figure the murders ordered by Juan Felix Cordero Febles (Copelin), who also fell victim to the violence.

Also pending are the cases linked to Solomon Eusebio Rosario (El Piki), being held in Colombia. The two have been linked to more than twenty murders.

La Romana authorities also handle cases against the two main heads of violent drug gangs, suspected of more than one 100 murders in turf wars: Winston Rizik (El Gallero-cockfighter) now in custody, and the “most wanted fugitive,” Pascual Cabrera Ruiz.

Another kingpin facing charges in the eastern city is Gregorio Viloria Pérez (Darío Gasolina), linked to numerous drug trafficking cases, including the high-profile “Paya massacre” in Bani. After plea bargaining in that case he continued committing the same crimes and is now being sought.

Another cell, also linked to Cabrera Ruiz, operated in La Romana, headed by former Navy Lt. commander Miguel Antonio Suárez Silfa, who recently returned to the country after serving five years in a Puerto Rico prison for drug trafficking by using Navy boats to mobilize and protect drug shipments.

He was arrested two weeks ago along with a group of accomplices, on the same day the National Drugs Control Agency (DNCD), the U.S. DEA, the Dominican Navy and Air Force seized a 960 kilos of cocaine near Saona island (southeast).

Those two cases occurred in the La Romana jurisdiction, but were transferred to the Santo Domingo and Higuey judicial districts for several reasons.

Successors

All groups have roots to the networks headed by the ex convict Antonio del Rosario Puente (Toño Leña ) and Jose David Figueroa Agosto (Junior Capsula), seen as the drug cartels’ key allies to mobilize drugs to Dominican territory and then to the US and Europe, in the wake of the December 2004 arrest of Quirino Paulino (El Don), released in the U.S. last year.

Unlike the other drug barons, Paulino reigned in the South region, like his late predecessor, Rolando Florian Felix, Dominican Republic’s first drug kingpin.