SANTO DOMINGO. - The authorities look for three Dominicans still fugitive and wanted in the United States accused of being accomplices of the drug trafficker Quirino Paulino.

The Justice Ministry received the extradition request for the three fugitives from the U.S. judicial authorities and who Paulino implicated as part of the ring that shipped thousands of kilos of cocaine from Dominican to U.S. territory.

Paulino, extradited to New York in February, 2005, agreed to a plea bargain with federal prosecutors, and led to the dismantling of the group of drug traffickers, in exchange for escorting his closest relatives out of the Dominican Republic and a lesser conviction.

As the result of Paulino’s cooperation, the New York South District Office of the Prosecutor identified Ernesto Bienvenido Guevara Diaz as the person who was recorded in a conversation to coordinate the shipment of 1,387 kilos of cocaine, seized December 2004, and is part of the evidence the prosecutor will file before judge Gabriel Gorenstein.

Local law enforcement agents have already identified the three fugitives wanted in extradition, but thus far have managed to evade arrest.