Peña Peña is a civil engineer and was appointed on September 15, 2014 as head of the General Directorate of National Cadastre, a position he held until 2020 when the Danilo Medina administration ended.
SANTO DOMINGO.- The former director of the National Cadastre, engineer Claudio Silver Peña Peña, whose name appears in the Public Ministry's investigation as part of the network that carried out fraudulent maneuvers through which they allegedly embezzled more than 17 billion pesos from the Dominican State, had been denounced last year by his ex-wife for gender violence.
Johanna Santos revealed the situation in a video last year, in which she claimed to have been married to the former official for 25 years, during more than 15 of which she said she was a victim of physical and psychological violence by him, whom she also accused of illicit enrichment and diversion of assets through front men.
The video was circulated through social media and was echoed by several media outlets, including El Caribe on April 9 of last year. The latter media outlet confirmed that the Santo Domingo East Prosecutor's Office had been assigned a complaint against the former National Cadastre official and member of the Central Committee of the Dominican Liberation Party (PLD).
Peña Peña is a civil engineer and was appointed on September 15, 2014 as head of the General Directorate of National Cadastre, a position he held until 2020 when the Danilo Medina administration ended.
The General Directorate of the National Cadastre (DGCN) is a government institution, dependent on the Ministry of Finance, whose main function is to carry out the inventory of all real estate in the country in its physical, economic and legal aspects.
“I saw through his eyes. He deceived me, he left me with nothing. He diverted all the assets to front men. Physical, emotional, and financial abuse. Help me, First Lady, help me, Mr. President! I can't do this alone anymore, help me, women's organizations, please, I don't want that man to have me killed, I don't want to die of a heart attack, from so much suffering and so much hardship,” the woman pleaded in the recording.
In the seven-minute video, Santos claimed to have received threats from her ex-partner, who, she said, continued to frequent her home. “I fear for my life, because a person who stays with a woman for more than 20 years, from the very beginning, when she was just a kid, and does all that damage, is capable of that and more. His god is money… I don’t want to be just another statistic, I don’t want to be just another statistic,” she repeated.
“Ms. Raquel Arbaje, please help me, and the Ministry of Women. I’ve knocked on many doors since the PLD government and they ignored me. That guy is a real octopus, he made me sick with nerves,” she said, her voice breaking, referring to her ex-husband, with whom she said she had two children.
Embezzlement involving land
Peña Peña, former director of the National Cadastre, appears among the main individuals involved in a mafia network that, according to an investigation by the Specialized Prosecutor's Office for the Prosecution of Administrative Corruption (PEPCA), defrauded the Dominican State of more than 17 billion pesos.
The document states that in a survey conducted by the Comptroller General, multiple fraudulent payment releases to third parties were identified under the modality of alleged public debt, for the concept of expropriation of land, for the sum of RD$19,653,871,513.80, for transactional agreements.
He says that the corruption network also used the simulation of the purchase and sale of land under the modality of administrative debt, which had as a common element credit assignment contracts for more than RD$10,500 million, "to people of complete trust who sometimes used shell companies, dissolving them immediately to obtain their objective," which constitutes the criminal type of embezzlement.
Pepca points out that during its investigation it was able to verify that in six months, the Ministry of Finance made 30 payments totaling approximately RD$10,993,120,387.60, while the National Treasury only certifies RD$5,636,093,821.14, for a difference of RD$6,431,438,750.41, which indicates that it made direct payments in violation of Law 10-07.
What does the National Cadastre do?
The General Directorate of the National Cadastre (DGCN) is a government institution, dependent on the Ministry of Finance, whose main function is to carry out the inventory of all real estate in the country in its physical, economic and legal aspects.
The National Cadastre was established in the Dominican Republic in 1949 as a dependency of the General Directorate of Income Tax, through Law 1927. This Directorate disappeared in its first year of application and on March 30, 1950, through Law No. 2337, it became a dependency of the General Directorate of Statistics, then on January 22, 1953, the National Cadastre ceased to be a department and was converted into a General Directorate.
Through Law 3728 of January 7, 1954, the National Cadastre again lost its status and became a department, this time within the General Administration of National Assets. Then, through Law 4344 of December 1, 1955, it regained its status as a General Directorate, which it maintained until 2005. At that time, with the amendment of Law 1542 on Land Registration, Law 317 was repealed by Law 108-05 of March 23, 2005, on Real Estate Registration, which merged the General Directorate of the National Cadastre with the General Directorate of Cadastral Surveys. In reality, these institutions never merged, as this law did not come into effect until two years after its enactment.
During Leonel Fernández Reyna's presidency, before Law 108-05 on Real Estate Registration came into effect, the Executive Branch submitted a draft bill. This bill, which expired on its first attempt, was resubmitted by Representative Radhamés Fortuna Sánchez and approved as Law 51-07, dated April 23, 2007. This law amended Law 108-05 on Real Estate Registration, reinstating Law 317 of June 19, 1968. The law recognized that the National Cadastre Directorate and the Directorate of Cadastral Surveys have distinct functions and that the Cadastre should remain an agency of the Executive Branch. The National Cadastre functions as an auxiliary tax collection office, supporting other state institutions that rely on property valuations.
