Electric utilities fraud explodes to US$350.9M

Santo Domingo.- After more than a four-hour meeting with the deputy attorneys Wilson Camacho and Yeni Berenice Reynoso, the executive vice president of the Joint Council of Electricity Distribution Companies, Andrés Astacio, said they delivered to the Justice Ministry more than 400 pieces of evidences that support the complaints about findings found in the investigations and audits carried out in the electricity distribution companies (EDE) to the Dominican State by an alleged criminal network of people and companies that stole more than RD$20.0 billion (US$350.9 million).

“We deposited the corresponding documentation with the Public Ministry so that it could initiate the criminal action and we were talking about the findings presented. We must return to complete it,” said Astacio when he left the Office of the Attorney General of the Republic (PGR).

He indicated that the accused Rubén Jiménez Bichara, Luis Ernesto de León Núñez, Rubén Montás Domínguez, Radhamés del Carmen Maríñez, Julio César Correa, Maxy Gerardo Montilla Sierra, Alexander Montilla Sierra, Juan Alexis Medina Sánchez, Messin Elías Márquez Sarraff, Domingo Antonio Santiago , Julián Esteban Suriel Suazo, Wacal Vernavel Méndez Pineda, Miguel Antonio Reyes Reyes, Peter Alexis Francisco Tejada and Dileisi de Jesús Rivera, and more than 25 national companies that were part of the alleged mafia network against which today they face a lawsuit, made frequent overvaluations and cost overruns.