Judge for Yourself - Pix here.. DR Lawyer or Salvadoran Trafficker?

This morning (back in the U.S. after being in Haiti) I got an early call from Fox News asking about any updates I might have about the ongoing saga of the Baptist missionary group from Falls Church, Idaho, that has been in jail on possible charges of kidnapping of Haitian children in late January.

I soon learned from colleagues at the NY Times that the Dominican lawyer hired by the Baptist group in the US, named Jorge Torres, is suspected of being someone else: a possible accused sexual trafficker from El Salvador whose name, I learned earlier, is Jorge Torres Orellano.

This story has not only gotten more bizarre, but it seems to involve so many layers of passing and posing... read on....

The Dominican Jorge Torres is apparently President of the Sephardic Jewish community in the D.R.

Salvadoran police say documents related to the Sephardic community were found in a brothel in Salvador related to the sex trafficking ring case that put Orellano in the spotlight as a suspected trafficker with possible ties to Columbia groups, and one who trafficked young Domincan girls to Nicaragua and El Salvador.

I spent a good portion of this afternoon on the Internet trying to find information about Orellano and his past activities in Salvador. Mostly I wanted to see a picture, to judge for myself. The pictures of Orellano vs. Torres are posted here - above - for you to judge for yourself.

One is a picture from the Silsby Haiti drama, showing the man who claims to be Dominican lawyer Jorge Torres, wearing a yamulke; the other is a mug shot taken of Orellano when he was arrested on a DUI - and caught with other identity cards including one for a Jorge Torres; the third is a Salvadoran passport picture of Orellano.

Striking resemblance, no doubt.

In this post, and the next posts to come, I'll share what I've found about the sex trafficking ring Orellano is alleged to have run. His partner, one Galvarina Ana Josefa, is now in jail for trafficking.

For his part, Torres denies any connection to a Salvadoran accused sex trafficker. Interpol, US, Haitian and Dominican authorities hope to arrest Torres and do a fingerprint comparison.

Tomorrow and the next days will bring information whether this is a Gotcha! case - or a very unfortunate mistaken identity. But things aren't looking so good for Mr. Torres in any case.

As media stories including the New York Times reported today, there is no record of Jorge Torres having registered with the Dominican bar.

Instead, intrepid bloggers report, his cousin, Alejandro Torres is a 27-year old Dominican lawyer who does practice law there. Jorge Torres had listed the address of his cousin Alejandro's office as his law practice in the DR, which supposedly employed 45 lawyers. But reporters who went the office said it's far too small to have that many people working there.

Now it seems that Alejandro is equally appeared mystified by his cousin Jorge's pretense and activities. The two work together in Puello Consulting, a company that seems to mix legal work with real estate and broad-based representation in various business negotiations. Alejandro appears to have challenged Jorge on why he pretended to be a lawyer for the Haitians. (see this blog on Web Sleuth - note: source and information from that blog have not been independently confirmed).

The Puello Consulting website was taken down Friday, but I'll share a copy of the cached information later tonight.

The questions I'm asking myself now:

Is this the same guy? (certainly looks like it)...

Did Jorge Torres or his brother - ie, Puello Consulting, help the Laura Silsby group rent the hotel in Cabrete, DR, where she planned to house the Haitian kids? Did they hold the lease to that property?

Did Laura know Torres or his group before this trip? Did they/could they have had some prior personal relationship?

Did Jorge Torres help the Silsby group draft/access their famous 'letter' authorizing them, they claimed, to bring Haitian children into the Dominican Republic (a letter that was shown to the Dominican consul, and Haitian prosecutor, but not to the media to date).

Could he have actually been behind the authoritization?

And finally, the question others have asked: why/how did Torres decide to involve himself, and call the Baptist relatives of the arrested missionaires in Idaho, to offer his initially 'free services'? If they were free, then why did relatives wire money to Puello to help transfer the members, once they were to be released - something reported in the press?

All of these questions are speculation, but, having gotten caught up in this story in Haiti, quite by chance, I find myself seeing a possible pattern....

If Jorge Torres does turn out to be Orellano, and this is a case involving a sex trafficking ring that took young Dominican girls and trafficked them to Nicaragua for sex work in El Salvador (see next posts on this blog) then, yes, the Haitian story turns out to be much more ugly, much more sinister, and with a possible history that will demand further investigation.

See below an internal notice from the National Civil Police in Salvador to it's membership, notifying them of the Interpol alert regarding one Jorge Torres. The text below is a rough translation of the Spanish notice, which follows after the English.

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Salvadoran National Civil Police bulletin:

Assistant Investigative Commissioner Howard Castaneda Augusto Cotto today confirmed they are investigating the case of a Salvadoran man identified as Jorge Torres Orellana, who has a pending warrant for the crime of Trafficking in Persons and Sexual Exploitation.

The case was taken up, the police chief said, after he learned from international information and the media, about a lawyer identified as Jorge Anibal Torres Puello, who, according to Dominican documents, was representing himself as a lawyer for a group of Americans involved in a case of possible sexual trafficking.

He said visual comparisons of photos published in the international media will be made with those in police files.

Until a "scientific" comparison and match of fingerprints can be made, the head of the national civil police said, they cannot confirm that this is the same person.

According to information, the Salvadoran Jorge Torres Orellana is the life partner of Galvarina Ana Josefa, who was captured in May last year on charges of Trafficking and Sexual Exploitation, and is currently imprisoned.

Commissioner Cotto, please make sure we can exchange information through INTERPOL El Salvador and their counterparts in Washington to send fingerprints to determine to determine whether it is the same person.

From National Civil Police, Salvador - Internal bulletin: Confirma investigacion de presunto abogado defensor salvadoreño

El Subdirector de Investigaciones Comisionado Howard Augusto Cotto Castaneda, confirmo hoy que están investigando el caso de un salvadoreño identificado como Jorge Torres Orellana, quien mantiene una orden judicial pendiente por el delito de Tráfico Ilegal de Personas y Explotación Sexual.

El caso se ha retomado dijo el jefe policial porque a través de un medio de información internacional se tuvo conocimiento sobre un abogado identificado como: Jorge Aníbal Torres Puello, según documentación dominicana, quien al parecer se ha mostrado como defensor de un grupo de estadounidenses, implicados en un caso de trafico de personas.

Aseguro que se están realizando las comparaciones fotográficas publicadas en el medio de comunicación internacional, con las del registro que posee la policía.

Por el momento no se puede confirmar que se trate de la misma persona, hasta que no se haga el cotejo de huellas, “porque solo científicamente se puede demostrar que se trate de la misma persona “ aseguro el jefe de la PNC.

De acuerdo a las informaciones, el salvadoreño Jorge Torres Orellana, según los documentos en nuestro país, es el compañero de vida de Ana Josefa Galvarina, quien fue capturada en mayo del año pasado, por el delito de Tráfico de Personas y Explotación Sexual, y quien actualmente guarda prisión.

El Comisionado Cotto, aseguro que se están haciendo el intercambio de información, a través de INTERPOL El Salvador y sus homólogos en Washington, para que nos confirmen el envío de huellas, para definir si se trata de la misma persona