7 in preventive detention in money laundring scam

A guarantee judge, Manuel Lezcano, ordered the preventive detention of Ezequiel Alarcón, alias Zequi, and six others alleged members of a criminal network dedicated to money laundering dismantled in Operation PTY.

The judge ordered preventive detention for Aylin Edith Ortega, a PANDEPORTE worker; Rubianesa Baker, a Ministery of Government worker; the activist of the Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD), Caridad Milagros Hurtado, better known as Caridad Kanelón; farmer, Asher Melamed, Yaribet Medrano, and Giancarlo Medrano.

Caridad Kanelón fainted when the judge announced her arrest.

During the hearing, which began on Friday, April 21 at 9:00 a.m. and which ended at 9:35 p.m., Judge Lezcano estimated that pre-trial detention for these seven suspects was the most appropriate to avoid flight and destruction of evidence.

Judge Lezcano also applied a notification measure twice a week to Francisco Rodríguez and Margarita García;  while Josefa and Yasmín Almengor, Kanelón’s mother and sister, had house arrest.

Prosecutor Joseph Díaz said that the defendants received large sums of money from drug trafficking and that some had bank accounts for amounts of $400,000, $200,000, and $300,000 that they could not justify.

Díaz specified that in the investigation it was possible to establish that members of the network spent large amounts of money on luxury cars and trips abroad, despite maintaining salaries with which they could not justify these large expenditures.

He also explained that the members of the criminal network used the illegally obtained money to introduce it into the national financial system, through the purchase of apartments, country, and beach houses in exclusive areas.

The defense lawyers announced that they will appeal.