Santo Domingo.- Public Ministry obtains a four-month extension to conclude the investigation and present charges against the former director of the National Institute of Transit and Terrestrial Transportation (
Intrant), Hugo Beras, José Ángel Gómez Canaán (Jochi) and others prosecuted in Operation Camaleón for incurring in administrative corruption and organized crime.
Wilson Camacho, Director General of Prosecution of the Public Ministry and the court prosecutor Mirna Ortiz, head of the Specialized Prosecutor's Office for the Prosecution of Administrative Corruption (Pepca), led the team of litigating prosecutors at the hearing. Camacho and Ortiz were accompanied by prosecutors Jonathan Pérez Fulcar, Arolin Lemos and Miguel Collado.
"In today's hearing, the Public Ministry
presented the extension request based on a series of elements that made the court reflect on the fact that, indeed, the initially granted term, in accordance with the criminal procedural law, was insufficient to conclude the investigation," explained Ortiz.
He also pointed out that the procedures still underway are not due to negligence or institutional delay, but to the "large amount of evidence that this case has, above all, technological evidence that has hindered the completion of certain expert opinions."
He considered that the court acted correctly in granting the extension established in the Criminal Procedure Code, of four months, to conclude the investigative phase. "Within that period we will be presenting the conclusive act of this process," he said.
Regarding the possibility of including new defendants in the process, he explained to the journalists who approached him: "You know that our operations are always characterized by continuing with the investigative lines, which means that there is a possibility that new people will be added with the presentation of the concluding act."
The Public Ministry supported the request based on the pending proceedings resulting from the volume and complexity of the file. In granting the extension, Judge Patricia Padilla, of the Second Instruction Court of the National District, set October 8 of this year as the deadline for the presentation of the formal accusation.
The judicial process includes as defendants, in addition to Hugo Beras, former director of Intrant, and José Ángel Gómez Canaán (Jochi), owner of the company Aurix S.A.S., Pedro Vinicio Padovani Báez, former head of the Intrant Traffic Control Center; Samuel Gregorio Baquero Sepúlveda, former director of Technology of Intrant; Frank Díaz Warden, former Dispatch Coordinator and representative of Beras before the Intrant Purchasing Committee; Juan Francisco Álvarez Carbuccia, administrative and financial director, and Carlos José Peguero Vargas.
The accused are identified as members of a corruption and organized crime network, linked to crimes such as embezzlement, fraud against the State, forgery, collusion of officials, smuggling, illicit trade, sabotage, terrorism against critical infrastructure, and identity theft.
Said illicit acts are typified and sanctioned in article 146, numeral 1, of the Constitution of the Dominican Republic, as well as in articles 123, 124, 147, 150, 151, 171, 172, 265, 266 and 405 of the Penal Code. Also applicable are Law 53-07 on High Technology Crimes and Offenses; Law 17-19 on the Eradication of Illicit Trade and Smuggling; Law 155-17 against Money Laundering and the Financing of Terrorism; and Law 267-08 on Terrorism.
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