A 26-year-old man has been charged with illegal firearm smuggling between the U.S. and the Dominican Republic.
Alexis Lara Herrera, from Boston, appeared in court on Friday and pleaded not guilty after being arrested in connection with the discovery of four guns and 500 rounds of ammunition inside an air conditioner entering the Dominican Republic, prosecutors say.
He has been charged with one count of smuggling goods from the U.S.; aiding and abetting, according to a release from the U.S. Attorney’s office, and is being held in custody pending trial.
If found guilty, he could face a sentence of up to 10 years in prison, three years of supervised release, and a maximum fine of $250,000.
In March 2023, local law enforcement in the Port of Haina, near Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic, examined international freight in the port, according to the Massachusetts U.S. Attorney General’s press office. They found Glock firearms and ammunition inside an AC unit that was part of a shipping container of household goods. Authorities say it was discovered to have originally come from Boston, having traveled through Brooklyn, New York.
The firearms are alleged to have been bought from federally licensed firearms dealers. Prosecutors say that evidence against Herrera was gathered from his phone.
The Massachusetts U.S. Attorney General Office has been approached by Newsweek for comment.
According to the nonprofit InSight Crime, Dominican authorities seized almost 5,000 arms between April 2019 and March 2022. The U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) found as part of a firearm tracking investigation that most seizures of illegally imported arms are made in Haina Port, and that almost three-quarters of all illegally imported guns trafficked to the Dominican Republic were produced or first imported to the U.S.
Security analyst Kelvin Jimenez told InSight Crime that trafficking is enabled by an international network of Dominicans in the U.S. who send the weapons to Santo Domingo. He said, “There are a lot of Dominican migrants in the United States, and a lot of companies specializing in shipping goods like clothes and food to the Dominican Republic. That’s how firearms enter the country.”
Data released by Statista showed that the Dominican Republic was the most armed Caribbean nation, with 795,000 of the civilian population owning at least one firearm in July 2024.
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
