HomeNewsBriefPuerto Ricans Accused of Hired Killings in Dominican Republic
BRIEF

Puerto Ricans Accused of Hired Killings in Dominican Republic

CARIBBEAN / 2 SEP 2011 BY RONAN GRAHAM EN

The trial of nine suspected Puerto Rican hitmen, accused of at least five gangland murders, has begun in the Dominican Republic.

Prosecutors in the Dominican capital, Santo Domingo, have formally accused the nine of involvement in the murder of five people, including police Colonel Jose Gonzalez Gonzalez and businessman Ruben Soto Hayet, as well as a number of other armed attacks.

At the trial, district prosecutor Candida Ramos described the crimes, which were all committed in broad daylight in public places in Santo Domingo, including the parking lot of a busy shopping mall.

The accused are all alleged to have had links with the drug trafficking and money laundering network of Puerto Rican drug lord Jose David Figueroa Agosto. It is alleged that Figueroa paid $30,000 for each murder.

Figueroa, who was considered by U.S. authorities to be the "Pablo Escobar of the Caribbean," was arrested in July 2010 in Puerto Rico and transferred to a New York prison to face charges in the U.S.

Figueroa is linked to at least 8.5 tons of cocaine brought into the U.S. from the Dominican Republic between 1994 and 2008.

share icon icon icon

Was this content helpful?

We want to sustain Latin America’s largest organized crime database, but in order to do so, we need resources.

DONATE

What are your thoughts? Click here to send InSight Crime your comments.

We encourage readers to copy and distribute our work for non-commercial purposes, with attribution to InSight Crime in the byline and links to the original at both the top and bottom of the article. Check the Creative Commons website for more details of how to share our work, and please send us an email if you use an article.

Was this content helpful?

We want to sustain Latin America’s largest organized crime database, but in order to do so, we need resources.

DONATE

Related Content

CARIBBEAN / 8 DEC 2022

A broad state of emergency announced across Jamaica in order to rein in rising violence has met with scorn.

CARIBBEAN / 18 OCT 2022

What would the impact be of proposed United Nation sanctions on Barbecue, leader of Haiti's G9 gang?…

BRAZIL / 8 NOV 2022

As gold prices have skyrocketed, a boom in mining across the Amazon Basin has flourished, leaving a deep environmental footprint.

About InSight Crime

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime Contributes Expertise Across the Board 

22 SEP 2023

This week InSight Crime investigators Sara García and María Fernanda Ramírez led a discussion of the challenges posed by Colombian President Gustavo Petro’s “Total Peace” plan within urban contexts. The…

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime Cited in New Colombia Drug Policy Plan

15 SEP 2023

InSight Crime’s work on emerging coca cultivation in Honduras, Guatemala, and Venezuela was cited in the Colombian government’s…

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime Discusses Honduran Women's Prison Investigation

8 SEP 2023

Investigators Victoria Dittmar and María Fernanda Ramírez discussed InSight Crime’s recent investigation of a massacre in Honduras’ only women’s prison in a Twitter Spaces event on…

THE ORGANIZATION

Human Trafficking Investigation Published in Leading Mexican Newspaper

1 SEP 2023

Leading Mexican media outlet El Universal featured our most recent investigation, “The Geography of Human Trafficking on the US-Mexico Border,” on the front page of its August 30…

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime's Coverage of Ecuador Leads International Debate

25 AUG 2023

This week, Jeremy McDermott, co-director of InSight Crime, was interviewed by La Sexta, a Spanish television channel, about the situation of extreme violence and insecurity in Ecuador…