Octopus: Ex-president’s brother took US$86.2M out of the country

Santo Domingo.- Lead prosecutor, Yeni Berenice Reynoso, before the investigating judge, José Alejandro Vargas revealed that the main defendant Juan Alexis Medina mounted a counterintelligence operation in the Attorney General’s Office with which he tried to obstruct his arrest for his part in the corruption web uncovered by Operation Octopus.

Reynoso said the Attorney General’s Office mounted another operation that thwarted the plans of the accused, -brother of former president Danio Medina- who was arrested by six soldiers, including a colonel.

She said the members of the dismantled corruption network were destroying evidence and taking as much as RD$5.0 billion (US$86.2 million) out of the country to Central America. She said that on the same day of the arrest, Medina confessed that he had hidden some evidence.

State’s witness

Reynoso, after listing the charges against the accused Rafael Germosén, said the former comptroller general agreed to plea bargain.