Traffic-cop ‘mafia’ scams Dominican taxpayers out of millions(Update)

Santo Domingo.- Dominican taxpayers were scammed out of hundreds of millions of pesos from the illegal collections from tens of thousands of traffic tickets issued to motorists by a mafia within the Metropolitan Transit Authority (Amet), uncovered by an internal investigation.

The mafia, allegedly committed multiple irregularities, was headed by senior officers including the colonels Alejandro de los Santos, Hector Heredia, Ramon Morillo, Carlos Martínez, majors Dorian Gregory Bryan Perez, Manuel Ventura and Francisco Reyes, Jacinto Jorge Rodriguez, and 20 other officials.

According to a National Police investigation begun last August in Santiago, the alleged scam consisted in that Amet agents didn’t report the fines to be scanned and destroyed the originals instead, but kept copies.

The probe was launched when motorists denounced the extortion, of technical officers Amet on mafia state that the fines were collected drivers "from behind" in cash.

"There’s no perfect crime as the agents were sent to the streets with instructions of slap a minimum of 10 fines daily, tearing the original to shake down the motorists, but they left copies of the summons, said a source quoted by elnacional.com.do. “The investigators have the original ticket books in their possession.

Three colonels nabbed on shakedowns, to spend only days in jail

FILE.Three colonels, three majors and other MetropolitanTransit Authority (AMET) officers were arrested at the request of a commission whichinvestigated "corruption and irregularities" with traffic fines, and whoallegedly shakedown of agents assigned to a construction company where they werepaid per diems.

The commission found that the senior officers forced the agentsto ticket at least 10 motorists daily, which were then withdrawn without being processedto cover their steps, in exchange for "gifts."

Among the detainees figure colonels Héctor Alejandro de losSantos, Ramón Morillo and Carlos Moisés Martínez, and mayors Gregory DorianBryan Pérez, Manuel Jacinto Reyes, and Francisco Jorge Rodríguez.

De los Santos and Morillo were ordered to spend 20 days inthe Police Dept. jail for misconduct.

Martinez was jailed for 15 days whereas Jorge Rodriguez, Reyesand Perez will be held during 10 days.