Attorney General Eric Holder has been traveling throughout the Caribbean this week for a series of talks on regional cooperation in law enforcement–a visit that will conclude with an Organization of American States conference in Port of Spain, Trinidad on Thursday and Friday.
Prior to the OAS conference, Holder held bilateral talks in the Dominican Republic and Barbados on Monday and Tuesday, and meetings with Trinidadian officials on Wednesday.
The agenda at the OAS conference, the Third Meeting of Ministers Responsible for Public Security in the Americas, is primarily focused on combating transnational crime, according to the Justice Department.
The conference will specifically focus on “modernising police institutions within a democratic framework, supporting police professionalisation and training, strengthening co-operation on police information systems and enhanced use of technology” according to the Trinidad Guardian.
Holder also held talks with Trinidad and Tobago Prime Minister Kamla Persad Bissessar, according to the Guardian. The two reaffirmed a commitment to collaborate on counterterrorism, according to The Gleaner, a Jamaican news website.
Holder also mentioned to reporters that he was satisfied with the extradition process between the two countries, in response to a question about the trial of Steve Ferguson and Ishwar Galbaransingh, two businessmen on trial in Trinidad, but who are also facing indictments in the U.S. for allegedly violating the Proceeds of Crime Act. Their extradition was overturned by a Trinidadian judge last week, the Trinidad and Tobago Newsday reported.
Holder also visited Barbados — the birthplace of his father and four grandparents — where he met the country’s Prime Minister and Attorney General, Fruendel Stuart and Adriel Brathwaite.
Early in the week, the attorney general was in Santo Domingo, capital of the Dominican Republic, where he attended a ministerial conference on international organized crime.
Holder also praised Dominican officials for ongoing collaborative efforts, citing their role in helping American officials to recover roughly $37 million worth of local assets owned by three Cuban brothers found to have committed Medicare fraud worth around $80 million. According to the Miami Herald, court documents show that the brothers, Carlos, Jose and Luis Benitez, used the stolen public money to buy “Mediterranean-style homes, apartments, hotels, boats, a helicopter, even a water park — all in the resort area of Bavaro, Dominican Republic.”
Holder announced that the United States will be sharing $7.5 million of the assets recovered in the Dominican Republic with the office of Dominican Prosecutor General Radhaméz Jiménez Peña.
Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), chairman of the House Oversight Committee, which is investigating the controversial Operation Fast and Furious gun operation, was critical of the week-long trip.
“One would think that agreements could be signed on a more abbreviated schedule that saves the attorney general time he continually indicates he doesn’t have, as well as taxpayer money,” according to The Daily Beast.
But Holder’s representatives defended the trip. An aide traveling with the Attorney General provided the Daily Beast with his itinerary and told the website that Holder ate at a diminutive fish restaurant in the Barbados on Tuesday night, where waiters were forced to take measures to keep the deck from flooding as a monsoon approached.
“We’re not going to the tourist parts of these places,” another Justice Department official on the trip said.
