Santo Domingo.- In the wake of several days of testimony by prosecution witnesses in the case of the Puerto Rican kingpin Jose Figueroa Agosto, codefendant Mary Elvira Pelaez, daughter of the late humorist Milton Pelaez, surges as the financial brain of the alleged ring of money launderers and hired killers.

The latest witness, Jose Almonte Sanchez, a supervisor of the tourism project Ocean One in Cabarete, Puerto Plata, affirms that Pelaez asked him to change the keys to apartment 1132, reportedly property of Figueroa, just days after his escape from agents on September 3, 2009.

In the hearing held in the National District 1st Collegiate Court, Almonte said he rejected Pelaez’s request, because although she was in the building’s list of administrators, he was told that the owner was Cristian Almonte (a Figueroa alias).

He added that when the authorities seized the apartment, he contacted Pelaez by telephone, since she figured in the proprietor’s list.

The prosecution witnesses Piero Paolo Bonarelli, among others, also testified they knew Peláez as the person who made payments for Figueroa’s purchases.

Although the prosecution hasn’t linked Figueroa to Milton Pelaez’s murder five years ago, the several gangland executions attributed to the case may offer new evidence into the ring’s scope of operations.