I live in the Dominican Republic for four years and I must use private forwarding services to receive packages and mail as the government postal service can take several months to get anything, along with having to pay off different people, if you get anything at all!
But using expensive private mail forwarders, Dominican Customs still open almost every box or shipment and are stealing items such as DVD's, other electronic items, and such consistently.
ONLY customs opens all packages and not the mail forwarder. There is no one to complain to as just about everyone and everything here is corrupt. This is terrible and why most of us who come here thinking this is a paradise, have left or are leaving.
I only hope someone in their government will read this and have some little bit of embarrassment and try to somehow (good luck) implement a monitoring system (if you live here you KNOW this is impossible here).
So, at least I can warn the rest of the world... stay away from this country!!