WEEKLY NEWS | FBI confirms the US Deaths in Dominican Republic were of Natural Causes

In June, we posted about the media reports surrounding US deaths in the Dominican Republic and whether or not it was safe to travel there. We followed that post in July to outline the safety measures the country had put in place for tourists to follow ensuring they were committed to tourists safety.

There were travel advisory reports, families of the those who passed and social media who went into a frenzy with a lot of negative comments about tainted alcohol, damaging DR’s tourism and reducing the amount of people who were traveling to the island.

The FBI went in to do their own independent investigation of the incidents and they have now confirmed that three cases were due to natural causes, and in all cases there was no poison alcohol that were the causes of death. “Methanol poisoning from tainted alcohol was ruled out by the FBI in these cases during the toxicology screening, and it was not the finding in any other cases of U.S. citizen deaths investigated by Dominican authorities," a State Department spokesperson told The Hill in a statement.

When this first came out in June, DR’s tourism minister said the statistics were apart of a normal phenomenon that were being lumped together by the US media. We advised that some airlines were offering full refunds to their clients who had booked flights to Punta Cana. and “The Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Punta Cana also announced it would be removing the liquor dispensers from all rooms because of guest feedback.”

Our hearts and condolences are with the families.

The Luxe and Lavish Travels team