Belgian Honorary Consul complains that his house has been robbed twice

posted on: Nov 24 2011 9:56 by The Reporter. Viewed 368 times.


The Belgian Honorary Consul in the Dominican Republic claims that he has been assaulted twice in less than a month at his home in Cabarete, by hooded individuals with firearms that have taken his possessions and forced their way into his safe.

Marc Batuil denouncing what he called a wave of muggings, robberies and death every day and worried about the safety of himself, that of his family and tourists, sent a letter to the Minister of Tourism, Francisco Javier Garcia and copied the letter to head of the Police, Major General Jose Armando Polanco Gomez.

"The police so far has been very slow and inefficient, as these events have been occuring almost daily for a month throughout the area," he says.

The diplomat warned both officers that his country could issue a warning to its citizens saying "Do not travel to the Dominican Republic," if the authorities do not explain and implemented security measures to curb crime in tourist areas before the tourist visiting season starts.

"It's the second time in 4 weeks that criminals have broken in to my property to assault and rob me. My reason for this complaint is because I was in the home where I spend my days off with my family and do not want us to be the victim of a assault which can lead to death in this country because there is a wave of assaults, deaths and robberies every day. "

He said that on two occasions in October, thieves broke down his doors, threatened his family with guns and forced open his safe and took its contents, at his home in Perla Marina in Cabarete, Puerto Plata province.

Batuil said that "unfortunately, in recent months we've seen an increase in security incidents with excessive violence that undermine the image of tourism we are promoting here."

According to his letter, Batuil also recounted that on Thursday September 15, two masked men broke into a rented house of two German tourists while they were reading on the terrace. They locked the tourists in the bathroom at gunpoint so they could search the entire house for valuables.

Batuil also says that in the same week in this gated community, thieves broke into the bungalow of an American, but took items of little value.

He also says that two weeks ago some Swiss tourists renting the "La Casa del Gato" property were victims of robbery while they went to dinner in town. "The thieves forced open the door and ripped out the safe that was found days later a few hundred meters from the site."

In other tourist areas, there was the recent case of robbery and murder in El Palmarito de Las Galeras on August 14 of Frenchman, Herve Beregeon, who was attacked with knives.

The affected tourist areas, said Batuil, are Las Galeras, Samana and Sosua and Cabarete inPuerto Plata.

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