SANTO DOMINGO.- United States ambassador Robert Fannin said Wednesday that Dominican officials who head the war on drugs have told him that the seized assets and money are sidetracked or returned to the criminals.

Fannin, speaking to a group of Dominican television executives and commentators, said the people in charge of drug enforcement in the country complained of that situation to him, when noting the limitations confronted to carry out their functions.

He said it’s different in his country, where assets and money seized from narcotics traffickers are expropriated and given to the agencies in charge of combatting drug crimes.

Dominican Republic law stipulates the expropriation of the assets seized, but only after the judicial process concludes. It’s in the course of that process when -according to what Dominican officials would’ve told Fannin- that the assets are lost or returned to narcotics traffickers.

The United States ambassador also defended his nation’s assistance to the country through the narcotics agency (DNCD). He said that if there’s a perception that it’s not numerous, it’s because it’s handled discretly, highly expensive and transferred essentially via training programs and intelligence.