Operator News
The Dominican Republic – Top officials arrested in gambling corruption case
By James - 27 March 2023
A well-known former presidential candidate and three former officials have been accused of embezzling nearly $350 million and illegal campaign financing.
The case, called Operation Squid (Operación Calamar) by the Office of the Specialized Prosecutor’s Office for the Prosecution of Administrative Corruption (Pepca) involves Gonzalo Castillo, a former public works minister who previously ran as presidential candidate in the 2020 general elections.
Also arrested is a former treasury minister, Donald Guerrero; former comptroller general, Daniel Omar Caamaño; and former administrative minister to the presidency, José Ramón Peralta. More than a dozen politicians and former cabinet members were arrested in all by The Public Ministry of the Dominican Republic.
According to the accusation, in the period 2016-2020, senior officials constituted a network of illegal collections that may have amassed as much as 19,700 million Dominican pesos, some US$360 million, making it the largest case of corruption in the Dominican Republic.
The former directors of Casinos and Gambling, Oscar Chalas Guerrero and Julián Omar Fernández, were also implicated as part of the anti corruption case. The officials were accused of allowing illegal sports betting parlours, lotteries and slot machine parlours to remain open in return for bribes.
When it comes to gambling according to prosecutors the modus operandi consisted of monthly payments that officials of the National Casino and Gaming Board (Dirección de Casinos y Juegos de Azar), demanded, as extortion, from the owners of sports betting outlets, lotteries and slot machine operators so that they could continue to operate. According to the investigation, operators that paid these monthly payments were those that did not have licenses, or were licensed but had failed to meet with the terms of their licenses.
