Three defendants in Operation Cobra confessed in court that they paid bribes to Senasa officials

SANTO DOMINGO (Dominican Republic) – This Thursday, during the hearing on the coercive measure requested as a result of the judicialization of Operation Cobra, three of the defendants admitted before the judge that they paid bribes to Santiago Marcelo F. Hazim Albainy, former director of the National Health Insurance (SeNaSa), and other officials of that state entity.

“This coercive measure has been of such magnitude that three of the accused have admitted their participation in the events and have also admitted their collaboration to the Public Prosecutor’s Office,” said court prosecutor Mirna Ortiz, head of the Specialized Prosecutor’s Office for the Prosecution of Administrative Corruption (Pepca).

He said that those who admitted the facts before Judge Rigoberto Sena did so “providing evidence and admitting that they paid bribes to members of SeNaSa, including its former director, Dr. Hazim.”

Ortiz highlighted the strength of the case presented against the 10 arrested in Operation Cobra for taking advantage of SeNaSa to defraud the Dominican State of billions of pesos, and for receiving more than 2 billion pesos in bribes alone.

In addition to Santiago Marcelo F. Hazim Albainy, the defendants in the case include Rafael Luis Martínez Hazim, Gustavo Enrique Messina Cruz, Germán Rafael Robles Quiñones, Francisco Iván Minaya Pérez, Eduardo Read Estrella, Cinty Acosta Sención, Heidi Mariela Pineda, Ramón Alan Speakler Mateo, and Ada Ledesma Ubiera.

The Public Prosecutor’s Office is requesting 18 months of pretrial detention and that the case be declared complex. They asserted that there are more than enough reasons for the case to be declared complex, “one of those reasons being the large number of victims; we are talking about a health insurance plan that covers more than 7 million Dominicans.”

Deputy Attorney General Wilson Camacho, head of the Public Prosecutor’s Office’s Directorate General for Prosecution, led the litigation team representing the prosecution at the hearing, along with Mirna Ortiz. The team also included prosecutors Héctor García, Rosa García, Enmanuel Ramírez, Yudelka Holguín, Aurelio Valdez, Alexis Piña, and Ernesto Guzmán.

“This afternoon (Thursday) we filed the coercive measure for this Operation Cobra, also presenting an important file of evidence containing more than 138 documentary evidence, more than 35 testimonial evidence, and expert evidence,” Ortiz told the press who approached her at the Palace of Justice in Ciudad Nueva.

He added that “tomorrow afternoon (Friday) we will continue with the presentation of the defenses, which is what remains, and then the response from the Public Prosecutor’s Office, and at that moment the court will be in a position to issue its decision.”

The Judicial Office of Permanent Attention Services of the National District, recessed until this Friday, at 2:00 in the afternoon, will hold the hearing on the request for coercive measures.

Judge Rigoberto Sena announced the decision after 11:00 p.m., when most of the defendants had already presented their defense arguments.

The Public Prosecutor’s Office is seeking criminal sanctions against those responsible for embezzling billions of pesos from the State through SeNaSa, as well as the confiscation of the money stolen from that health risk administrator (ARS).

Among other crimes, the group is charged with collusion of officials, prevarication, criminal association, bribery, fraud against the Dominican State, embezzlement, forgery, use of false documents, and money laundering.