MP requests 18 months of preventive prison against eight people arrested during Operation Begonias

Santo Domingo.- The Public Ministry requested a court in Santo Domingo Este to impose 18 months of preventive prison on eight defendants of the human trafficking network dismantled last weekend with the Begonias Operation.

Coercion was requested against Dominicans Johanse Díaz Casado (Johan el Gordo), Johanse Díaz Lemonier (Johan), Wilson Pérez Duque (el Menor), Lilian Yleana Sierra Espinosa and Ariel Alfredo Soto Madrigal (el Gordo) and against Colombians Karen Juliana Chia Gelvez (Nana and/or Naye and/or Colombiana), Lina Marcela Valdez Cortes and Yasibit Esaleivi López Medina (Cristal).

The Judicial Office of Permanent Attention Services of Santo Domingo East set the hearing for the coercion measure for this Tuesday.

The Public Ministry, represented by the General Directorate of Prosecution of the Public Ministry, under the direction of Deputy Prosecutor Wilson Camacho, along with the head of the Specialized Prosecutor’s Office against the Illicit Trafficking of Migrants and Trafficking in Persons (PETT), court prosecutor Yoanna Bejarán; the Prosecutor’s Office of Santo Domingo Este, represented by its head, Milcíades Guzmán, and the prosecutors of the PETT Flor Jiménez and Ginna Matías, request the pre-trial detention and declare the complexity of the process. Prosecutors maintain that they have sufficient evidence to support the involvement of the accused in the acts qualified as human trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation, association of wrongdoers and money laundering. Regarding the case, the Public Ministry indicated that the accused arrested as part of Operation Begonias recruited in Colombia and moved to the country the young women they sexually exploited. The group offered the victims jobs as bartenders or hotel waitresses.

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The Public Ministry detailed that after bringing them in, they retained their documents and threatened to harm their family members in Colombia, while pressuring them for an alleged debt of 3,500 to 4,000 dollars that they made them pay if they wanted to accept the promise that they could be released.

About the Operation

The Begonias Operation is part of the actions promoted by the management of the Attorney General Yeni Berenice Reynoso against transnational crime. It was launched last Saturday, with multiple raids in the province of Santo Domingo, the result of an extensive investigation initiated several months ago to dismantle transnational human trafficking networks for the purpose of sexual exploitation and with which more than 40 women were rescued. In the work, the Public Ministry had the support of the Special Division of Investigation of Transnational Crimes (Deidet) and the Department of Human Trafficking of the National Police. Prosecutors from the Task Force of the General Directorate of Prosecution also participated, as well as members of the Department of Investigations of the PETT and the Unit for the Protection of Victims and Witnesses of the Public Ministry. The investigation against the networks had the support of the NGO Anti Trafficking Bureau (ATB). A team of 10 prosecutors, more than 85 agents of the National Police and several investigation technicians and specialists in victim assistance mobilized from early Saturday morning. During the operation, the prosecution teams seized cash, six vehicles, electronic equipment, notebooks, and different narcotic drugs. Similarly, the properties that were used as operation spaces of the network were seized, including a multi-level building.