Aviation chief says Dominican airspace shut to drugs, not the coasts

Dominican Civil Aviation Institution  (IDAC) director Jose Tomas Perez affirmed Tuesday here that Dominican Republic’s airspace is definitively closed to drug trafficking and asked the government to control the coasts to keep the drug smugglers from using that route“We have controlled the entry of drugs to the Dominican Republic through the sky almost totally. I can assure you that at this moment, specifically in October, the entry of airplanes is zero,” he said.

The official, a member of the PLD’s Political Committee, the ruling party’s top echelon, based his affirmation on a report provided him by the United States Southern Command, whose radar blips he says don’t show a single drug trafficking aircraft flying into Dominican Republic.

“When we arrived in IDAC two or three years ago the number of airplanes which entered the country with drugs was between 180 and 190 per year. The report we have for September and October shows zero entries by the aerial route.”

He said the Southern Command report surprised him because practically all the radar blips (illegal flights) have been detoured toward Honduras. “But the drugs continue entering the country by sea and naturally we must close that route and when we close it, criminality will fall more than 50% in the entire country.”

Source: Dominican Today

For the best rates on hotels, resorts and accommodation in the Dominican Republic click here.

If you found this interesting check out our updates on Facebook and Twitter.