Dominican prosecutors tackle US$236.8M in embezzlement cases

Santo Domingo.- Anticorruption Director Yeni Berenice Reynoso, warned Sun. that 2022 will be a “very intense and challenging year” in the fight against government corruption. 2021 resulted in the indictment of 35 defendants and the seizure of billions in assets.

Reynoso, together with Special Anticorruption (Pepca), Prosecutor Wilson Camacho, leads the investigations into more than 500 cases of govt. corruption.

Of the 35 defendants, some are being held in pretrial detention, others are free on bail, or wear an electronic tracer.

Among the cases that involve officials from the past and present administration are those of the corruption networks Anti Octopus, Coral, Lottery 13 and Medusa, where those involved are accused of embezzling at least 13.5 billion pesos (US$236.8 million).

In the Octopus case, the authorities carried out 38 raids throughout the country and arrested 11 people last December whom they accused of embezzling the state with more than 4 billion pesos among those involved. Among those involved are Alexis Medina Sánchez and Carmen Magalys Medina Sánchez, brothers of former president Danilo Medina, among 25 other defendants.