A young Cuban who traveled to the Dominican Republic with the intention of settling there was deported to the Island after being scammed by a false Immigration official.
Jose Antonio Machado, 27 years old and a member of the Jehovah's Witnesses church, arrived in Santo Domingo on June 24, 2022 and immediately began the procedures to regularize his immigration status in the country.
A friend from his church introduced him to Maria Panetlla, a member of the Social Christian Reformist Party and who offered to help him obtain the documents he needed to legalize his situation.
"That woman, time after time, told me that she was an official of the General Directorate of Immigration and an agent of that institution and she committed to me to resolve everything related to my temporary Dominican residence," Machado said in a video broadcast by N Digital.
During the alleged regularization process, the woman showed him screenshots of alleged conversations with the general director of Immigration, and also wrote a letter in which the Cuban appeared as an employee of the company Sandy Electro Import.
In the following months, he gave her more than 70,000 thousand Dominican pesos, but he never had any evidence that any procedure was being carried out.
"The only thing it caused me was a lot of damage and a lot of harm," Machado said.
Finally, the young man began a claim process against Panetlla for the return of 77 thousand pesos, plus another 5% interest for other amounts of money granted. Of the total, he was only able to recover 40 thousand pesos.
In response, the woman reported to the authorities that she had been subjected to shouts, insults and death threats by the Cuban, which led to her arrest and imprisonment in an Immigration Center on September 20.
He remained there for more than four months, until he was deported on February 8.
From Cuba, José Antonio is trying to get the Dominican authorities to know his case and help him achieve justice.
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