Dominican Republic says colonel and officers stole police weapons and ammunition to sell to Haitians

SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic (AP) — Authorities in the Dominican Republic have arrested a colonel and nine officers accused of stealing weapons and ammunition from the police department’s armory and illegally selling them to people including criminals in neighboring Haiti, where violence has surged.

The crackdown that began Sunday is ongoing as officials continue to track down weapons and military supplies. The investigation began when authorities started reviewing inventories at the armory.

The Associated Press obtained an official document on Thursday that sheds details on the ongoing investigation, including that the stolen supplies were sold to Haitians.

The document stated that one of the suspects arrested, a woman who lives in the southern Dominican province of Pedernales, which borders Haiti, is accused of receiving dozens of boxes of ammunition of different calibers that were sold from $86 to $99 each. It noted that Miguelina Bello Segura sold them to Haitians who would routinely use them to commit crimes.

The document also stated that the colonel who was arrested, Narciso Antonio Feliz Romero, received cash stuffed into a backpack from an officer who sold ammunition via a contact in Haiti.

Attorneys for Bello and Feliz could not be immediately reached for comment.

Overall, the scheme officials say was run by Feliz illegally sold more than 900,000 projectiles.

It wasn’t immediately known how many weapons and what types were sold or when the group began operating. Officials have not released details, saying the investigation is ongoing.

Dominican President Luis Abinader has long criticized the situation in Haiti and taken steps that have frayed the countries’ tenuous ties including targeting migrants and building a wall along the border that both nations share on the island of Hispaniola.

Wilson Camacho, head of the Specialized Prosecutor’s Office that focuses on administrative corruption, has called the case “extremely serious” and said it placed the country’s national security at risk.

Last year, the U.N. published a report noting that weapons and ammunition reach Haiti largely via the Dominican Republic, and, to some extent, Jamaica.

Violence in Haiti has surged in recent weeks, with heavily armed gangs invading once peaceful neighborhoods and forcing the main international airport to temporarily close after striking three commercial flights.

Residents gather before a person they say was killed in an attack by gang members, in the Pétion-Ville neighborhood of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Tuesday, Nov. 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Odelyn Joseph)

HALIFAX, Nova Scotia (AP) — Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau 's government announced plans Thursday to temporarily lift the federal sales tax off a number of items and send checks to millions of Canadians who are dealing with rising costs and as a federal election looms.

The measures come as a cost of living crisis has left voters unhappy with Trudeau and ahead of an election that could come anytime between this fall and next October.

“Our government can’t set prices at the checkout, but we can put more money in people’s pockets,” Trudeau said at a press conference in Toronto.

Under the plan, Canadians who worked in 2023 and earned up to 150,000 Canadian dollars (US$ 107,440) will receive a check for 250 Canadian dollars. Trudeau noted that even those earning at the high end of that amount have been struggling to get by.

An estimated 18.7 million Canadians will receive the one-time check.

The federal goods and services tax break would begin Dec. 14 and end Feb. 15.

The government said the tax break will apply to a number of items including children’s clothing and shoes, toys, diapers, restaurant meals, beer and wine. It also applies to Christmas trees, a variety of snack foods and beverages and video game consoles.

“Politically, it’s probably too little too late and it feels like a desperate move on the part of an unpopular government," said Daniel Béland, a political science professor at McGill University in Montreal. “It’s also bad public policy, at least from a fiscal standpoint.”

Trudeau has said he will lead his Liberal Party into the next election. No Canadian prime minister in more than a century has won four straight terms.

Trudeau channeled the star power of his father in 2015 when he reasserted the country’s liberal identity in 2015 after almost 10 years of Conservative rule. But the son of late Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau is now in trouble. Canadians have been frustrated by the cost of living coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Liberals trail the opposition Conservatives 39% to 26% in the latest Nanos poll. The poll of 1,047 respondents has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau attends an announcement regarding a two month suspension of GST on selected goods, at Vince's Market, a grocery store in Sharon, Ontario, on Thursday Nov. 21, 2024. (Chris Young/The Canadian Press via AP)