Security warning: Crime at Dominican Republic airports
— -- Passengers and flight crews are warned to be vigilant at the Dominican Republic's major airports following a spate of criminal incidents, a special report by a Houston-based security company says.
FrontierMEDEX, which issued the report, says gangs have followed vehicles from Las Americas International Airport and Cibao International in recent months to rob travelers.
The security company says there were "multiple incidents" of theft at Las Americas last year. The thefts included perimeter fencing, items sold by airlines to passengers and items in passengers' checked bags.
"Dominican authorities have not demonstrated a great capacity to curb these incidents, which may leave aircraft and personnel vulnerable to crime," the report says.
Las Americas airport provides flight service for Santo Domingo, the country's capital and largest city. Cibao airport is in the country's second-largest city, Santiago de los Caballeros.
More than 1.1 million Americans arrived in the Dominican Republic by air in 2010, and about 681,000 arrived during last year's first six months, statistics of the Central Bank of the Dominican Republic show.
Four big U.S. airlines — American, Delta, JetBlue and Spirit — fly into both airports, and Continental and US Airways have flights at Las Americas, according to January flight schedules of OAG Aviation Solutions.
JetBlue and Air France last year complained about a lack of security and increased thievery in and around Las Americas, according to the online newspaper Dominican Today.
U.S. airlines also fly into three other airports in the Dominican Republic —La Romana, Puerto Plata Gregorio Luperon and Punta Cana.
In travel information on its website, the State Department's Bureau of Consular Affairs says U.S. citizens "have been victimized" at Las Americas and Punta Cano airports while checking in luggage.
"Smugglers obtained an authentic airline baggage tag in a U.S. citizen's name and placed it on baggage that contained drugs, presumably to be retrieved by a confederate at the other end of the flight," the website says.
Last month, government officials seized a 2,374-pound shipment of cocaine at La Romana, which accommodates flights of American and JetBlue and is located near a tourist town of the same name and the Casa de Campo resort area. At least 17 people were arrested, including personnel who provide airport security and work for the country's immigration and anti-drug agencies, Dominican Today reported.
On Jan. 7, two men and a woman were arrested at the airport for smashing a window while trying to break into a vehicle. One of the men had previously been tried three times for vehicle theft, and the other man had previously been tried twice for robbery, Dominican Today said.
At the terminal of Puerto Plata Gregorio Luperon airport in May, the body of a German citizen who was stabbed to death was found, FrontierMEDEX says.
"Of notable alarm was that the body was not immediately discovered," the FrontierMEDEX report says. "Authorities have yet to determine how the murder could have occurred without being detected in the busy facility."
USA TODAY analyzed State Department data and found that seven U.S. citizens were murdered in the Dominican Republic in 2010. Two other Americans were murdered there during the first six months last year, according to the department's most recent statistics.
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