Puerto Rico on alert after drug fugitive's arrest
By DAVID McFADDEN (AP) – 6 hours ago

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — With the Caribbean's biggest reputed drug lord back behind bars, law enforcement authorities in the region are on alert for potential bloody feuds among rivals and lieutenants trying to take his place.
The Saturday capture of Jose Figueroa Agosto in Puerto Rico's capital after a decade-long hunt was a big break, but it also means that members of his violent group may try to wrest control of his share of the illegal trade, said Javier F. Pena, special agent in charge of the Caribbean division of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.
"This guy was truly the leader of his organization," Pena told The Associated Press on Sunday. "And anytime the top guy is taken down, his people can start to fight one another to assume control. There is always concern that people will be jockeying for position, so it's a matter of time to see if there will be bloodshed."
Authorities have painted Figueroa as the Caribbean's version of Pablo Escobar, the late notorious Colombian drug kingpin of the 1980s.
For 10 years, the 45-year-old Puerto Rican fed his underworld mystique by pulling off narrow escapes and taunting police in the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico, a U.S. territory that is attractive to traffickers as America's southernmost border.
But his luck finally ran out this weekend, when Figueroa was caught while driving through a working-class Dominican neighborhood of San Juan. When he realized he was being followed, he tried to run on foot but U.S. Marshals, FBI and DEA agents, and Puerto Rican police captured him. He was wearing a wig as a disguise.
Gov. Luis Fortuno told a news conference Sunday that he phoned Dominican President Leonel Fernandez to discuss the arrest and reiterate the importance of future security collaborations between the two Spanish-speaking governments.
Police chief Jose Figueroa Sancha told the same news conference that the reputed kingpin's arrest "not only represents a gain for island and federal authorities ... it is an international gain."
"We have arrested one of the major drug traffickers in history."
Though no one can say exactly how much cocaine Figueroa allegedly moved, the scale of his reputed empire emerged following a botched September raid in the Dominican Republic, which netted several cars, including an armored Mercedes Benz with $4.6 million in cash inside, and a laptop computer full of evidence. Dominican authorities also confiscated a ranch with a small zoo — along with at least nine vehicles, including two Ferraris.
"He's got properties, boats, cars, jewelry and cash out there," Pena said.
For years, he "hid" in the open in the Dominican Republic, building ties with upper-crust Dominicans who appear regularly in society magazines. Since the September raid, several people have been jailed on charges that they laundered money or otherwise aided Figueroa.
Investigators are concerned that his conspirators have included police and other officials.
Figueroa reputedly funneled Colombian drugs to the U.S. mainland through Puerto Rico, where he walked out of a prison in November 1999 after presenting guards with a forged release order. He had served only four years of a 209-year sentence for killing a man suspected of stealing a cocaine shipment.
Within a month, he moved to the Dominican Republic, where he was detained as part of a drug investigation in 2001. He was released after two weeks; he used an alias and authorities didn't know his true identity.
He is wanted in the Dominican Republic on kidnapping, money-laundering, drug-trafficking and murder charges.
U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder had personally pledged full cooperation to capture the fugitive, who was wanted on a U.S. Marshals warrant for his prison escape and for filing a false passport application. He also was the target of a U.S. task force focusing on major drug suppliers to the U.S.
Copyright © 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

PUERTO RICO (LALATE) – Sobeida Moreal (photos below), aka Sobeida Félix Morel, girlfriend to Figueroa Agosto (aka Junior Capsula or José Figueroa Agosto), has been arrested.

The Sobeida Morel arrest of Figueroa’s girlfriend comes after a massive manhunt and search warrant commenced this weekend. On Saturday night, federal agents confirmed to local news that José Figueroa Agosto’s domestic partner Sobeida Felix Morel had been arrested following on a chase in the street of Loiza, the same spot where Junior Capsula was arrested hours earlier.

Sobeida Moreal Figueroa Agosto Pictures
Sobeida Moreal Fotos 1
Sobeida Moreal Fotos 2
Sobeida Moreal Fotos 3





Dr. Felix Portes, attorney for Felix, agreed to his cleints surrender nearly 8 hours after that chase. Portes said “I imagine the authorities will begin an expedited process to bring it herer in seeking to integrate the criminal process that is already open.” He added that charges against Morel are weak.

It remains unclear if negotiations resulted in Moreal’s surrender. Portes adds: “If there were a negotiation, that we do not know, is speculation. … It’s unusual to first see if any kind of negotiation, because Sobeida when the arrested tried to … talk with me, but in that sense as we were was that she had nothing to offer and there was no negotiation”

'Pablo Escobar' of the Caribbean Arrested in Puerto Rico After Tony Montana-Worthy Career
By Tim Elfrink, Mon., Jul. 19 2010 @ 9:00AM
Categories: El Cartel

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via U.S. Marshals Service
Jose Figueroa Agosto was arrested this weekend after a decade-long run from the law.
?He moved boatloads of Colombian cocaine through the Caribbean to U.S. shores, bought dozens of luxury homes and built a house in the Dominican Republican with his own personal zoo, police say. When he was nabbed for murder in the late '90s, he paid the jailers $1 million to escape -- and then bragged about it on the D.R.'s most popular radio show.

But the long escape of Jose Figueroa Agosto -- named the "Pablo Escobar of the Caribbean" by U.S. Marshals -- came to an appropriately bad-ass end this weekend when police spotted him wearing a wig in San Juan and chased him down on foot.
Agosto, a 45-year-old American citizen, started building his empire in the 90s by shipping Colombian coke through Puerto Rico and into the U.S. mainland, police say.


He was arrested after murdering a man he suspected of stealing a cocaine shipment, and later sentenced to 209 years in prison after his conviction. But just four years later, in 1999, he apparently bribed police to make a fake release order and slipped out of jail.

Figueroa fled to the Dominican and re-established his empire there, police say. His wealth was exposed in part earlier last September when Dominican police, acting on U.S. intelligence, tried to raid his high-rise in Santo Domingo.

As detailed by the Huffington Post, Figueroa escaped on foot after police shot out his Jeep's tires, but he left behind laptops full of aliases and a half dozen of his addresses, including the ranch with a zoo outside the Dominican capital. Police also found an armored Mercedes with $4.6 million in cash stuffed within.

On Saturday, Agosto tried to run off on foot again after police spotted him driving in San Juan, but this time he couldn't escape.

"We asked him his name, and he simply answered that we knew who he was," Antonio Torres, head of Puerto Rico's branch of the Marshals Service, told reporters.

So in a little over a month, the feds have taken down the "Pablo Escobar" of the Caribbean and Christopher "Dudus" Coke, the drug kingpin of Jamaica.

It's a great time to be a DEA agent, but now where will Miami get its drugs?

Lovers of alleged trafficker charged in Dominican Republic in money laundering case
By Ezequiel Abiu Lopez (CP) – 14 hours ago
SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic — Eight people who allegedly spent $170 million on apartments, cars and other goods using money from the Caribbean's top drug trafficker were formally charged with money laundering and other crimes on Friday.
The suspects include two of Jose Figueroa Agosto's lovers, including the woman who was living with him when he was captured Saturday in Puerto Rico.
Sobeida Felix Morel, 31, turned herself in shortly after Figueroa was caught and she was quickly sent back to the Dominican Republic. She wore a flak jacket and ballistic helmet in the court session, as did the other female defendant, Madelin Bernal. Felix's ex-husband, Eddy Brito, is among the defendants.
None of them entered a plea, though Felix's attorney, Felix Portes, said she should be released.
"There is no evidence that ties her to drug trafficking or to money laundering," he said.
They are scheduled back in court on Aug. 11.
Prosecutors say the group purchased $170 million worth of apartments, cars and other items with drug money that Figueroa earned.
Officials describe Figueroa as the Pablo Escobar of the Caribbean, a reference to the 1980s drug kingpin of Colombia. He is suspected of shipping Colombian drugs to the U.S. mainland through Puerto Rico.
Figueroa escaped from a Puerto Rican prison in 1999 after serving four years of a 209-year sentence for killing someone suspected of stealing a cocaine shipment. He then moved to the Dominican Republic and at some point returned to Puerto Rico.
Dominican officials have not said if they will seek to extradite Figueroa, who faces kidnapping, money-laundering, drug-trafficking and murder charges here.
But U.S. and Puerto Rican officials have their own plans for Figueroa, 45.
On Friday, the U.S. Attorney's Office said it turn Figueroa over to Puerto Rican authorities once it resolves the federal passport fraud charges he faces.
Felix, who had been awaiting trial on the money laundering charges, was granted bail in October 2009 so she could care for her two children. Instead, she fled to Puerto Rico and joined Figueroa.
Wanted posters of the couple are still plastered across Santo Domingo.
Dominican police also have released pictures and videos of Figueroa having sex with Felix and Bernal to prove the women's connections to him.
Police are still looking for Figueroa's wife, Leavy Nin Batista, who remains a fugitive.

The Shoes are starting to drop

Prosecutor orders investigation in August video
Subero Jimenez told that the file is being implemented with all the rigor
Radhames Jimenez Pena, Attorney General of the Republic.
SANTO DOMINGO. The Attorney General of the Republic, Radhames Jimenez Pena reported that instruct Frank Soto, director of the Chase National Drug and Crime Complex, to investigate from where the leak occurred four videos which contains the Puerto Rican relations holding Jose Figueroa in August sex with several women.

The films are sold on the streets on a DVD, like pornographic film, accompanied by a cover of August Figueroa naked and pictures of Sobeida Felix Morel.

According to Jiménez Peña, the leak of these videos, which are converted into a business, "who would be directly affecting the key players, let's call them that, of that film," he said.

Estimates that "if this is becoming a business and there are people who are profiting from this activity, I believe that the legitimate rights on these copyrights are both of Jose Figueroa in August as Felix Sobeida Mrs. Morel."

In the videos, Figueroa August figure with several women in a cabin and talking on the phone when he hears about buying SUVs.

Jiménez Peña stated that the Public Ministry has worked on an accusation supported by the collection of evidence so there is no possibility that the defendants can be downloaded.

"The Public Ministry has worked hard, is determined to make an accusation supported by irrefutable evidence that we consider."

The official is fully convinced that these tests are to be sustaining a conviction.

He understands that judges must objectively evaluate the evidence submitted by the MP.

Questioning

Jiménez Peña stated that if necessary, arrangements will be held for questioning in Puerto Rico on August Figueroa on the file of money laundering from serious offenses have in the country, in which nine others are accused.

In a possible questioning, prosecutors would move to Puerto Rico, on order rogatory.

The Caribbean Drug Kingpin Turned Porn Star
By EZRA FIESER / SANTO DOMINGO Wednesday, Aug. 18, 2010

Street vendors in Santo Domingo usually eke out a living selling pirated DVDs of Hollywood blockbusters to motorists caught in the notorious traffic jams of this bustling Caribbean capital. But these days, the motorists are the ones seeking out the vendors. "This porno is all people want," says Wilfredo Ortiz, 22, who has sold DVDs on the streets here for five years. "It's so popular, I've never seen anything like it. This is bigger than that Paris Hilton." But the star of this homemade movie is no American socialite. He's the Dominican Republic's most wanted man. Known as "Junior Capsula," "Angel Rosa," and by a slew of other aliases and nicknames, José Figueroa-Agosto is more aptly described as the Pablo Escobar of the Caribbean, an alleged drug trafficker whose network was extensive and whose rule was lethal.
At least that was the case until last month when Figueroa-Agosto, 46, was captured while driving through a Puerto Rican neighborhood wearing a wig as a disguise. Living up to his brash reputation, Figueroa-Agosto, when asked by arresting officers for his identity, said "you all know who I am," before attempting to run off. His arrest has only served to heighten his status in the Dominican Republic, where a tell-all book was released last week — written by no less than the press scretary of the country's President Leonel Fernandez. The Power of Narco by Rafael Nuñez" is an in-depth tale of the hunt for Figueroa-Agosto.
The book and the sex footage — which came into circulation after it was allegedly confiscated during a raid on his Santo Domingo apartment last year — have become something of a comic sideshow to what officials and analysts say is a major step in combating a deadly scourge. "The significance of this arrest can't be overstated. He was the head of a major drug trafficking organization," says Ivelaw Lloyd Griffith, provost of York College at the City University of New York and an advisor for Caribbean governments on how to combat drug trafficking. "This arrest shows that the bad guys can be brought to justice."
(See the origins of the Caribbean's drug trafficking crisis.)
Authorities say Figueroa-Agosto, a Puerto Rican, worked as a drug boat driver until 1993 when he carried out a hit on a truck driver who allegedly stole a shipment of Colombian cocaine. Puerto Rican courts convicted him of the murder and sentenced him to 209 years in prison. But in 1999, he walked out of the prison's front gates after presenting guards with a falsified release order. He was on the run for the next 11 years, running his criminal organization while living what U.S. Marshals described as a luxury lifestyle in both the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico. He allegedly bought homes and cars under false identities. At one point, Figueroa-Agosto — or a man claiming to be him — called a popular Dominican morning radio show and offered an $800,000 reward for the murder of either of the country's two top police officials.
(See what happens to dreams of pro baseball in the Dominican Republic.)
Puerto Rican and Dominican anti-narcotics units tell TIME that his organization controlled as much as 90% of the drugs run from the Dominican Republic to Puerto Rico. The FBI says Puerto Rico is the Caribbean's most sought-after drug territory because much of the cargo from there does not have to clear customs before entering the eastern U.S. seaboard. Considering his alleged criminal network's size and influence, Figueroa-Agosto faces shockingly thin charges: the feds have filed a single passport fraud charge that dates to 1999 (he has pleaded not guilty to the charge). But he has already been convicted in Puerto Rico of charges for which he will have to serve 205 years in prison. Agencies are mounting a drug trafficking case against him and declined to answer questions about the reach of Figueroa-Agosto's organization.
Puerto Rico's Attorney General Guillermo Somoza-Colombiani and other sources tell TIME that two of his partners have been arrested and charged. One is Figueroa-Agosto's alleged "right-hand man," Elvin Torres Estrada — better known as "El Munecon" — who was arrested in Puerto Rico in June. According to court documents, Torres supplied a Puerto Rican drug gang called "The Combo of the 70s," which operated out of a fortress-like base in public housing complexes in Bayamon, just south of the Puerto Rican capital of San Juan. From there, the gang supplied "narcotics to drug traffickers throughout Puerto Rico, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Florida," an April federal indictment against Torres and 64 other alleged members of the organization states. The organization made millions off the distribution. According to the federal indictiment, they threw a free annual Christmas concert with performances by some of the biggest names in Puerto Rican reggaeton for residents. They reportedly built recording studios and gyms. And they traveled to the United States to buy cars to compete in drag racing events, according to the indictment.
Allegedly feeding it all was Figueroa-Agosto's trafficking ring, receiving shipments from at least three South American routes. According to federal charges filed against the second of Figueroa-Agosto's alleged accomplices, Ramon Antonio Del Rosario-Puente, better known as "Tono Lena," the organization transported South American cocaine and heroin from three routes. A small airplane would drop bundles in the Dominican Republic, where they'd be collected, repackaged and moved to Puerto Rico or to the U.S. (Torres, who is in jail awaiting trial, has not entered a plea. Neither has Del Rosario-Puente, who in custody in the Dominican Republic. The U.S. Attorney's office in Puerto Rico has asked for his extradition.)
(See a brief history of extraditions.)
The racket apparently made Figueroa-Agosto a millionaire. When Dominican authorities raided his Santo Domingo apartment and other residences last year, they confiscated the equivalent of $4.6 million hidden in an armored Mercedes Benz, eight other vehicles — including two Ferraris — and the animals of a small petting zoo he'd set up in a countryside home. Figueroa-Agosto, however, escaped. A man claiming to be him later told a popular morning radio show that he'd paid police $1 million to evade the arrest. Dominican President Fernandez has said there would be no "sacred cows" in routing out the corrupt officials with ties to the case. Last week, 13 police and military officers were removed for their alleged involvement.
(Comment on this story.)
Yet, similar corruption throughout the region has some questioning the focus of the Obama administration's major regional anti-drug initiative — the Caribbean Basin Security Initiative. The initiative, launched last year with $37 million divided among 15 countries, was needed to mop up the "spillover" from the Colombian and Mexican drug wars, officials say. This year, the administration has requested $72.6 million, distributed to areas such as military and narcotics control. "The initiative needs to go further in strengthening the local institutions," says Colin Frederick, a Trinidad and Tobago-born research associate with the Washington-based Council on Hemispheric Affairs. Frederick says the Caribbean has long been a way station for drug shipments to the U.S. and Europe, but lately drug traffickers are seeking out more routes in the region. "These are small countries that lack border and maritime security. ... And these days, traffickers are looking for alternatives to Central America and Mexico." Many Caribbean countries, including Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic, have linked increasing murder rates to the drug trade. Analysts expect a new wave of violence to follow Figueroa-Agosto's arrest as rival cartels battle for control of the lucrative route. "He'll be replaced by someone else. They'll fight for control," Frederick says.
Figueroa-Agosto's career as a drug trafficker may have come to an end, but back on the streets of Santo Domingo it seems his cinematic life is just getting started. Police arrested dozens of DVD vendors, but that did little to cut demand. A week after the video first hit the streets, Ortiz says he tripled his asking price for the videos. "They're selling like hot bread."


Read more: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2011778,00.html#ixzz0xBFxxzb2

anything new on this guy