PLD asks PRM to break ties with narcopolitics and clarify financing from drug trafficking

Santo Domingo. – The Dominican Liberation Party (PLD) asked this Monday the Modern Revolutionary Party (PRM) to break all ties with “narco-politics” and clearly explain how people linked to drug trafficking have financed their campaigns and held public office. During a press conference led by José Dantés, legal secretary and member of the PLD Political Committee, the opposition party pointed out that several former officials and leaders of the PRM have been accused or convicted of drug trafficking in the United States and the Dominican Republic. Among the names mentioned are Fabio Jorge-Puras, former honorary advisor to the Executive Branch, Gaspar Polanco-Virella, former director of Public Services of the Ayuntamiento del Distrito Nacional, and former deputy Miguel Gutiérrez Díaz, sentenced to 16 years in Miami for drug trafficking.

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José Dantés stated that these files demonstrate a “worrying pattern” of organized crime penetration into the PRM’s political and governmental structures. “Never before has drug trafficking been so comfortable and so represented in political power,” he said. The PLD leader maintained that the government cannot take credit for the extraditions or convictions, since, according to him, they have been driven by the United States justice system, not by local authorities. The PLD asked the PRM to explain if drug trafficking financed its 2020 and 2024 campaigns, to acknowledge that drug traffickers were part of its structures, and to take concrete measures to clean up its ranks. “Drug trafficking is a threat to democracy. Narco-politics is not fought with speeches, but with transparency, control of financing and accountability,” expressed Dantés. The opposition party concluded its statement by asserting that the alleged relationship of the PRM with figures of drug trafficking “shames the country” and “degrades Dominican politics.”