The Dominican Republic seems to be becoming more of a transit harbour for hard drugs.
Prison
The Netherlands Antilles used to have the dubious honour of being the biggest transit
harbour in the Caribbean. But the strict checks and consistent arrest of the drug couriers have resulted in the drug barons
moving their business to the Dominican Republic.
The drugs are imported in small planes and dropped somewhere over land.
Fast boats are also used to bring the drugs ashore, where they seem to disappear among the tourists from Europe, Canada and
the USA. Tourists are arrested almost every day as they try to smuggle the drugs out of the country. These drug couriers are
often Dominicans with a Canadian, American, Spanish, Dutch, Belgian or German passport. This is stupid, of course, because
this country has a very strict punishment system for such offences, and the jails here can only be described as pure hell.
The Dominican Government has purchased a number of smaller propeller aircraft from
Brazil, and these will be used to track down the small private planes transporting drugs. The Coastguard also has some speedboats
to fight the drugs import via the coast. Airline passengers and their baggage are being searched by specially trained sniffer
dogs at all airports. This campaign is starting to achieve good results. Hundreds of kilos of cocaine have already been confiscated,
and many couriers have been jailed.
Tourists generally know nothing about such activities. If you don't go looking for
trouble then you'll not find it. Drugs are not visible on the streets, as they are in large cities such as Amsterdam, for
example. But there are always idiots around who go looking for trouble.
