Santo Domingo
Santo Domingo, formerly known as Santo Domingo de Guzmán, is the capital and largest city of the Dominican Republic and the List of metropolitan areas in the Caribbean, largest metropolitan area in the Caribbean by population. the Distrito Na ...
– 30 May 1967,
Haiti
Haiti, officially the Republic of Haiti, is a country on the island of Hispaniola in the Caribbean Sea, east of Cuba and Jamaica, and south of the Bahamas. It occupies the western three-eighths of the island, which it shares with the Dominican ...
Dominican Republic
The Dominican Republic is a country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles of the Caribbean Sea in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean. It shares a Maritime boundary, maritime border with Puerto Rico to the east and ...
.
Rise to power
Abbes was born in 1924 in Santo Domingo,
Dominican Republic
The Dominican Republic is a country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles of the Caribbean Sea in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean. It shares a Maritime boundary, maritime border with Puerto Rico to the east and ...
, the son of a German American accountant and a Dominican woman. As a young man he was interested in sports, and one of his first jobs was as a sports reporter. In the mid-fifties, he moved to
Mexico
Mexico, officially the United Mexican States, is a country in North America. It is the northernmost country in Latin America, and borders the United States to the north, and Guatemala and Belize to the southeast; while having maritime boundar ...
, where he worked as an official in the Dominican embassy. He started to gather information on anti-Trujillo dissidents and relayed this information to the island. Abbes also studied the technical aspects of spying and intelligence gathering. In 1956 he returned to the Dominican Republic and, after Trujillo's half-brother Nene introduced him to the dictator, quickly rose to power.
Head of SIM
In 1958 he became the head of the newly created Servicio de Inteligencia Militar (SIM) and the chief planner of assassinations of the regime's adversaries abroad. SIM employed thousands of people and was involved in immigration, passports, censorship, supervision of aliens, and undercover work, including foreign operations. Thus he was instrumental in the two attempts to kill
Venezuela
Venezuela, officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many Federal Dependencies of Venezuela, islands and islets in the Caribbean Sea. It com ...
's then-president Rómulo Betancourt; first there was an attack on Betancourt in the streets of
Havana
Havana (; ) is the capital and largest city of Cuba. The heart of La Habana Province, Havana is the country's main port and commercial center.car bomb blew up his Cadillac in Caracas, killing the driver and a bystander, while Betancourt survived.
After Trujillo
After Trujillo's assassination in May 1961, Abbes moved quickly to hunt down the assassins. Trujillo's son, Ramfis Trujillo, returned from Paris, supposedly with the help of Abbes, and attempted to step into the place of his father, but his attempt ultimately failed, and he left the country, together with most members of the Trujillo family, later that year. Following the Trujillos' departure, President Joaquín Balaguer appointed Abbes
consul
Consul (abbrev. ''cos.''; Latin plural ''consules'') was the title of one of the two chief magistrates of the Roman Republic, and subsequently also an important title under the Roman Empire. The title was used in other European city-states thro ...
to
Japan
Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...
, but Abbes soon left the post and spent several years in Europe. He returned to the Caribbean in 1966, moving to
Haiti
Haiti, officially the Republic of Haiti, is a country on the island of Hispaniola in the Caribbean Sea, east of Cuba and Jamaica, and south of the Bahamas. It occupies the western three-eighths of the island, which it shares with the Dominican ...
, where he worked for then-President François 'Papa Doc' Duvalier as a security advisor. Abbes disappeared in June 1967. According to journalist Bernard Diedrich, Abbes and his wife had come under suspicion for plotting against Duvalier, but the reasons for his disappearance, and those responsible, remain unknown.Mario Vargas Llosa's historical novels '' The Feast of the Goat'', about Trujillo's Dominican Republic, and '' Harsh Times'', about Arbenz's Guatemala, devote much space to Abbes.