NEW YORK. - Eduardo Rodriguez Cordero and Bladimir (Vladimir) Garcia, two of the most important defendants in the case of 1,387 kilos of cocaine against the ex Dominican Army captain Quirino Ernesto Paulino Castillo, pleaded guilty to charges of drug trafficking, conspiracy and money laundering, in the biggest drug bust in the Caribbean country’s history.

Among the accused who’ve already agreed to a plea bargaining are the ex Police colonel Lidio Nin Terrero, and the driver of the truck carrying the drug, Tirso uevas Nin.

Rodriguez and Garcia agreed to a plea bargaining with the South District Office of the Federal Prosecutor in exchange for lesser sentences to be read October 8  and November 10 respectively, in special hearings headed by judge Kimba M. Wood.

Rodriguez, who owns several companies in Dominican Republic and accused of being part of the ring allegedly led by Paulino, was one of the first arrested in the days following the ex captain’s extradition to New York.  Among his assets is the construction company CONSTRUGAR (Constructora García), which Dominican authorities searched at that time and confiscated a safe that reportedly had $25 million dollars in cash.

Rodriguez, arrested in an Upper Manhattan billiard parlor and since then held in Lower Manhattan’s Park Row federal detention facility, was refused several requests for bail filed his lawyer Linda George since March, 2006, as prosecutors argued that he posed a flight risk. His brother Samuel Rodriguez Cordero (Sammy), one of the last to be arrested, is also accused in the case.

In 2006 Rodriguez’s attorney alledged that the safe had more money than the sum reported by the Dominican Government, but declined to specify the amount seized by that country’s authorities.