SANTO DOMINGO. The number of illegal flights or plans operated from drug cartels from South America towards the Dominican Republic climbed to 354 over the last three years, while the drops of drug packages over land and water number 59.

The data was supplied by the head of the National Department for Drug Control (DNCD), Major General Rolando Rosado Mateo, during an intervention at the Round Table of the Justice and Institutionalism Foundation (FINJUS) on "Organized crime: a threat to governability".

Along these lines, the consultant to the Office of Narcotics Affairs at the United States embassy, Beatriz Arenas, warned that the criminal organizations have become a threat to security and democracy since they have passed the very limits of internal public order.

She said that international crime is interested in molding political institutions. She warned that there can be no democracy without security. "And there will be no security ever, if we do not have control", she added.

Her advice was not to forget the cartel that makes false medicines, because through the business of false medicines they are going to try and import products to process drugs in countries such as the Dominican Republic as a way to diversify their activities in the face of higher levels of control that are being adopted.

Meanwhile, Rosado Mateo said that in 2008 there were 98 illegal flights, but during the period from January to August of this year, there were 59. Just in September they discovered 6 and in October 4.

The general said that he believed that the reduction in the number of flights is due to the concerted effort of the authorities and the national and international organizations that are fighting drug trafficking.

Rosado Mateo said that the air drops over water this year have been 36 and over land, 23. In August there were five drops over water, and in September, 4 and in October, only 2.

The times of the air drops for drugs are basically between 9 and 10 o'clock at night and 1 o'clock in the morning, according to the explanations by the head of the DNCD who assured the reporters and members of the Round Table that Colombia has recovered its airspace, and this has caused the illegal drug traffic to depart from Venezuela, where the flights to the DR, Haiti, Central America and even Mexico begin on the high plains.

The mechanisms used to move drugs are high speed boats, coming from Colombia and Venezuela, small and large aircraft, as well as ships that bring the greatest amount of drugs.

Rosado Mateo revealed that the analysis regarding the behavior of the drug traffic by the specialized organizations has identified the three principle corridors and a fourth one that was recently discovered. He said that the first corridor is the one through Central America that moves about 940 tons of cocaine. The one through the Caribbean traffics about 240 tons and the corridor to Europe for which he did not give any numbers.

"There is a fourth corridor, that was recently opened, which is the corridor towards Africa, through which the drugs flow into Europe and that at this time is being subjected to study and analysis", he said.

He showed a map with a series of routes that the cartels use to move their drugs, both through the air as well as by sea. He numbered the routes through which drugs entered the country, among them the Dominican-Haitian frontier.

Nevertheless, he considered that this is not the fundamental way by which drugs enters Dominican territory. Other places where the drugs come from are Colombia, Venezuela, Panama Trinidad and Tobago.

Given the weakness of Haiti, he said that it was possible that an amount equal to or even greater than the amount entering the Dominican Republic could be entering Haiti with the idea of moving then to the Dominican Republic.

"But this does not mean that we are the center piece, or the bridge, because we have also become a destination, as in the case of ecstasy, that comes from Holland, using France to reach Guadalupe and from Guadalupe they send it to Haiti."

De Diario Libre