Several former ministers in the Dominican Republic are arrested for alleged corruption

( Spanish) — The Public Ministry of the Dominican Republic launched Operation Squid this Saturday night, the new case of the Special Prosecutor for the Prosecution of Administrative Corruption (Pepca) that involves former ministers and former officials of the country for alleged crimes that include corruption and financing illicit campaign

According to a statement from the Public Ministry, among those arrested are Donald Guerrero, former Minister of Finance; José Ramón Peralta, former administrative minister of the presidency; Gonzalo Castillo, former Minister of Public Works; Daniel Omar Caamaño, former Comptroller General of the Republic; Luis Miguel Piccirilo, former director of the State Sugar Council; Claudio Silver Peña, former director of the National Cadastre; and Oscar Chalas Guerrero and Julián Omar Fernández, former directors of Casinos and Gambling.

Likewise, the citizens Roberto Santiago Moquete, Agustín Mejía Ávila, Emil Dávila Fernández, Marcial Reyes, Alejandro Constanzo, Yahaira Brito Encarnación and Ana Linda Fernández are detained.

“The preliminary accusation of the Public Ministry against the defendants is of association of criminals, embezzlement, coalition of officials, falsification of public and private documents, bribery and illicit campaign financing on an unprecedented scale, money laundering, among others” The authorities reported in the statement.

tries to determine if the detainees have legal representation and how they testify to the accusations.

In the operation of the Dominican Public Ministry, 40 raids were carried out between the National District, the province of Santo Domingo, San Pedro de Macorís and La Romana with the participation of 40 prosecutors, dozens of technicians from investigative units, 300 members of the National Police and members of the administrative support team.