Vincho Castillo

Marino Vinicio Castillo Rodríguez (born July 18, 1931), better known as Vincho, is a prominent Dominican lawyer, and controversial figure in Dominican politics. He is the president of the conservative political party National Progressive Force (Fuerza Nacional Progresista), and served as the main defense attorney of Ramón Báez Figueroa, prosecuted for the largest bank fraud in Dominican history, the Baninter case.

Castillo Rodríguez (San Francisco de Macorís, Dominican Republic) is the son of Pelegrín Castillo, also an attorney and founder of a law firm that Vincho maintains until today, and Narcisa Rodríguez. He married Sogela Semán, the daughter of Lebanese immigrants, and begat his childs , Juárez Víctor, , and Sogela María.

His paternal grandfather was first cousin of Matías Ramón Mella Castillo, one of the Founding Fathers of the Dominican Republic.

During the regime of Rafael Trujillo, Vincho was appointed by the Dominican Party as Representative for the Congress, and later worked with President Joaquín Balaguer in the Agrarian Reform of the early 70s.

Linked to the most obscure faction of then-official Reformist Party, Vincho was accused of being the central figure in the manoeuvre that caused the electoral conflict of 1978, when President Balaguer refused to accept Antonio Guzmán Fernández's victory. Eventually, four elected senators from the opposing PRD where snatched away in a very questionable decision by the Electoral Junta. It has been alleged that Vincho personally altered and falsified acts and documents to support the fraud, but these accusations were never proved.

By the 90s, Vincho was a presidential candidate and a senate candidate, but lost both elections. From 1996, he adhered himself to Leonel Fernández, serving him as the president of the National Counsel of Drugs.

Castillo has been an outspoken law-and-order crusader for over twenty years and has taken a hardline position against the growth of narcotics trafficking in the Dominican Republic and the Caribbean, since elevated drug profits found their way into the economy of the island nation. During the last 15 years, office buildings, apartments towers, hotels and shopping centers are springing up in Santo Domingo, Santiago and San Francisco de Macorís - often in a gaudy style that some describe as narco-deco. Dominican banks have opened branches as far away as Thailand, raising new fears about the growing economic influence of the traffickers.

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