Santo Domingo.- The Presidency’s Adviser on drugs yesterday affirmed that politicians’ influence prevented including the two Drugs Control Agency (DNCD) colonels under investigation in connection to the case of the fugitive Jose Figueroa Agosto, in the wake of the gangland murder of Police colonel Jose Amado González, “because there’s fear they would talk if taken to trial.”

Marino Vinicio Castillo (Vincho) also asked president Leonel Fernandez not to waver in the investigation and to not let public opinion or comments by officials influence him on any changes on 27 de Febrero, which may affect  the heads of the Police and of the DNCD which participate in the case with the Justice Ministry.

“We need to get to the bottom of this and nobody who’s involved in that dangerous drug trafficking structure can be excluded,” Castillo said.

He also criticized that while the civilians who dealt with Figueroa’s vehicles or properties are being sent to jail, the colonels he says are implicated aren’t behind bars.

The official affirmed that murders of González and Ramon Omar Antigua, Figueroa’s alleged accomplice, were committed not only because of mistakes they might have made within the ring, but to frighten and send the others the message that “if you talk they’ll kill you.”

“That means that Figueroa’s structure remains intact and that he continues being protected by the same officials, the police and military chiefs who supported him from the beginning,” he said.

He said there are indications linking the colonels Miguel Sanchez Martinez, DNCD operations chief, and Manuel Diaz Medina, it’s commander in La Romana Airport (east) to González’s murder, because Sanchez spoke with him a half hour before the crime and the second came from La Romana to get a computer and other items from the victim’s apartment without his superiors’ authority.

Interviewed Monday in the program Hoy Mismo, Castillo said Figueroa’s underworld structure has operated for 9 years with the support of various sectors, and again mentioned former U.S. ambassador Hans Hertell as “possibly” having information in the case. “It’s amazing that Figueroa ran around for nine years under the very noses of U.S. intelligence, while the American ambassador was moving around in the same social circles as the Puerto Rican (Figueroa).”