Seven doctors arrested in Ecuador for covering up Albanian drug trafficker Dritan Rexhepi's escape
Seven doctors and a penitentiary official were arrested in Ecuador for helping Albanian drug trafficker Dritan Rexhepi simulate his presence in the country after he fled in 2022.
Arrests in Ecuador for covering up Albanian drug trafficker Rexhepi
Seven doctors and former doctors from Ecuador's Ministry of Public Health, together with a prison system official, were detained this past weekend on suspicion of involvement in a scheme that would have allowed Albanian drug trafficker Dritan Rexhepi to appear to be complying with the conditions of his parole when he had already left the country. This was reported by infobae.com, an outlet that has documented this scheme since 2022.
Police and the Office of the Prosecutor carried out 11 raids in Guayaquil, Quito and Macas, following an investigation lasting approximately eight months. Interior Minister John Reimberg stated that the detainees face charges of alleged organised crime, procedural fraud, identity fraud and falsification and use of forged documents.
A convicted drug trafficker who escaped with a false identity
Rexhepi had been detained in Ecuador in 2014 and sentenced to 13 years in prison for drug trafficking. In November 2021 he obtained parole on the condition that he present himself every 15 days at the Casa de Confianza of the Penitentiary of the Coast, in Guayaquil.
The investigation established that Rexhepi left Ecuador on 7 September 2022 via the Rumichaca border crossing using a false identity. However, after that date, records continued to appear purporting to show that he remained in the country and was fulfilling his judicial obligations.
According to Reimberg, the cover-up operation would have been sustained by means of fraudulent documents, false signatures and irregular medical certificates. The investigation also detected a mechanism to simulate in-person presentations: a reproduction of Rexhepi's fingerprint would have been placed in a latex glove to register his alleged attendance.
Irregularities revealed from 2023 onwards
Infobea.com had revealed in March 2023 that the Ecuadorian government had lost track of the Albanian and that there were suspicions that another person was signing the attendance records in his name. Two sources—one from the National Service for Comprehensive Care of Adults Deprived of Liberty (SNAI) and another from the Police's Anti-Narcotics Unit—confirmed at that time that that possibility was being considered.
A month later, the outlet accessed official documentation delivered by SNAI to then legislator Fernando Villavicencio. The files showed that during his parole, Rexhepi registered 22 appearances and 14 justified absences, with notable differences between the signatures attributed to the drug trafficker. A memo dated 20 April 2023 from SNAI's Subdirection of Precautionary Measures and Execution of Sentences warned of "inconsistencies and irregularities" in those records.
The medical justifications also presented anomalies. Documents from December 2022 and January 2023 repeated diagnoses, symptoms and even oxygen saturation and heart rate values despite having been drawn up on different dates. In another medical record used to justify an absence in March 2023, Rexhepi was described as a 64-year-old patient when he was around 42 years old.
After learning of this documentation, Villavicencio filed a complaint with the Office of the Prosecutor and requested an investigation into seven SNAI officials, Rexhepi's public defender and six doctors from the General Hospital Guasmo Sur in Guayaquil who had issued the certificates used to justify the absences. The authorities have not yet confirmed whether those six doctors correspond to any of the seven professionals arrested in the operation this past weekend.
Captured in Turkey and extradited to Albania
Rexhepi was captured in Istanbul in November 2023 and subsequently extradited to Albania. The investigation opened in Ecuador now seeks to determine who made it possible for, while the Albanian remained outside the country, state records to continue showing that he was fulfilling the obligations of a sentence still in force.
Source: Google News EC — Crime