Santo Domingo.- After evaluating and approving an agreement presented by the Public Ministry, the Collegiate Tribunal of the Criminal Chamber of the Court of First Instance of Barahona sentenced the members of a criminal structure for drug trafficking and money laundering dismantled in 2023 to 8 and 5 years in prison.
The court imposed sentences of eight years in prison for Ruth Esther Matos (house arrest), Yohan Moisés Ferreras Báez, Danny Daniel Decena, and José Augusto Romero. In addition, it sentenced Cristell Cuevas and Máximo Leonardo Rodríguez Pineda to five years in prison, both under suspended sentences.
The court, composed of judges Wanda Deño Suero, Celina Novas Jiménez, and Luis Eugenio Pérez Volquez, validated the application of an opportunity criterion regarding Yahaira Ferrera Báez, to whom it imposed a fine of 200 minimum wages.
The Public Ministry was represented by prosecutors José Manuel Calzado and Pedro Medina, from the Specialized Anti-Money Laundering and Terrorism Financing Prosecutor’s Office and the Barahona Prosecutor’s Office.
The agreement, of a partial and full nature, established for Ruth Esther Matos the seizure of her assets, in addition to the payment of a fine equivalent to 200 minimum wages.
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Yohan Moisés Ferrera Báez must serve 8 years in prison in the Azua jail. The court also ordered the seizure of his assets and a fine of 200 minimum wages.
Also, he ordered the seizure of the assets of Cristell Cuevas and Máximo Leonardo Rodríguez Pineda.
In addition, Danny Daniel Decena and José Augusto Romero must pay a fine of two hundred 200 minimum wages and serve their eight-year sentence in the public prison of Barahona.
As part of the agreement, the dissolution of the company called “Compra y Venta de Metales del Sur” was also ordered.
The team of prosecutors, led by Ramona Nova Cabrera, interim head of the Specialized Anti-Money Laundering and Terrorism Financing Prosecutor’s Office, and Wellington Matos, head prosecutor of Barahona, obtained strong evidence against all members of the network that operated in a complex money laundering scheme, through the international drug trafficking, from the southern region of the Dominican Republic.
The group was arrested in the act after an interdiction operation, carried out on July 10, 2023, in which 245 packages weighing 254.080 kilograms of cocaine hydrochloride were seized.
Furthermore, this network is linked to the seizure on September 6, 2013, in the municipality of Juancho, Pedernales province, of 14 bales with 446 packages, and on August 3, 2018, with 285 packages of cocaine hydrochloride seized on Caletón beach, Barahona.
The criminal structure moved the sum of RD$1,221,436,064.41 and US$96,665.41 in the national financial system.
The company Recicladora de Plástico Compra y Venta de Metales del Sur Replacovemesur SRL, which was used as an instrument of the criminal organization, made financial movements that reveal income of RD$35,829,826.76. Regarding Cledyn Pérez Félix, the file was broken down and he was declared in rebellion.
