Servicio de Inteligencia Militar

The Servicio de Inteligencia Militar (SIM) (English: Military Intelligence Service) was the main instrument during the later part of the dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo to keep control within the Dominican Republic.

For the Spanish organization, see Servicio de Información Militar.

Operation

Around 1957 the Department of State for Security, headed by General Arturo Espaillat was dissolved, replaced by SIM and its sister agency, the Servicio Central de Inteligencia (SCI).[1] Under the leadership of Johnny Abbes García, SIM employed thousands of people and was involved in immigration, passports, censorship, supervision of aliens, and undercover work.[2] At the Palace of Communications some fifty people intercepted and recorded domestic and foreign phone conversations.[1] Its secret activities used murder, kidnapping, extorsion and terror to achieve its goals. Money was spent to lobby American legislators.[1]

In the population members of SIM were known as "caliés" (Thugs), they patrolled the streets in their black VW beetles called "cepillos" (brushes). Infamous detention centers were La Nueve (The Nine) and La Cuarenta (The Forty) where prisoners were tortured and killed.

SIM was dissolved in 1962, after the fall of the Trujillo regime.

Directors
No. Portrait DirectorTook officeLeft officeTime in office
1
Abbes García, JohnnyColonel
Johnny Abbes García
(1924–1967)		195719602–3 years
2
Torres, CándidoColonel
Cándido Torres		196019600 years
3
Figueroa Carrión, RobertoColonel
Roberto Figueroa Carrión		196119620–1 years

Famous operations

Cultural references

SIM and its leader Johnny Abbes García are frequently mentioned in Mario Vargas Llosa's historical novel, The Feast of the Goat.

References
  1. Bernard Diederich. Trujillo. The Death of the Goat. Little, Brown, and Co, 1978. p. 33ff. ISBN 0-316-18440-3.
  2. Crassweller RD. Trujillo. The Life and Times of a Caribbean Dictator. The MacMillan Co, New York (1966). p. 329ff.
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