On Friday we told you about the 2-day multi-agency raid at Carmelita's Caribbean International Brewery Company Limited.
The search resulted in the authorities finding and seizing 3.1 million dollars in cash, which were stored in a safe. Police also detained nine persons who were charged with immigration offenses.
Now, the company wants its millions back, and it's hired senior counsel Dean Barrow to get it. They have retained the Former Prime Minister to challenge the search and seizure in Court. Late this afternoon, we spoke with Barrow at his office and asked him squarely about the company's justification that those 3.1 million dollars are proceeds of their legitimate sales and not some kind of funny money business. Here's how he answered that:
Dean Barrow, SC, Attorney for CIB
"I have been retained just for the purposes of trying to establish that the monies that were seized are the proceeds of sale and proceeds of the business. My clients are saying that their distribution network is principally in the Chinese community. Their distributors are all Chinese merchants and business houses. They do cash sales, and that at the bank you are only allowed to deposit $50,000 at a time and so there is this accumulation of the revenues from the manufacturing and from their operations."
Barrow then asserted that from his assessment of the matter so far, he thinks that the Government is exposing itself to a massive award of damages from the courts. That's because the FIU wants to hold on to the money for three months so that they can investigate and assure themselves that the confiscated funds aren't proceeds of crime. The problem is that a portion of the 3.1 million dollars is also the beer company's operating capital; without that money, their business will fold. Here's how he made that point later on in our conversation:
Dean Barrow, SC, Attorney for CIB
"I believe it is hard put for them to justify the seizure of the money. The law does say if a police man is lawfully on the premises, and they did have a search warrant to go unto the premises, he can seize any money that he/she finds there if he has a basis for thinking that that money is tainted, or is connected with money laundering, terrorism activity or some other serious crime. You end up as a result of a search charging one or two people for working without a permit for $1,000 fine. How is that going to be in any connected to $3 million dollars which you find in cash which the people tell you, especially because they just came off the September celebrations when the volume of business increases. How do you justify that and its seizure on the basis that no you think that this may sound or be involved in money laundering, this may somehow be proceeds in crime. Well, that is the position the authorities are taking, it is now up to me to try and persuade a court that that is not in the circumstances at all, justifiable that these people should get back their money because they employ 70+ Belizeans in addition to 5-6 number of Chinese nationals who all have permanent residency status. You closing down the operations, so all these Belizeans will be out of work, you close down the operation for 2 days because you searched all of one day and you went back the next day. They have tried to restart since Tuesday after the holidays but how will they pay the workers, how will they get the monies to purchase the raw materials if you are holding on to their operating funds? still I guess the powers that be in their own wisdom have satisfied themselves that they are right in doing what they have done. I absolutely disagree but I would have to say that, I am representing these people, so I am making allowances for that. I will stop there and just say we will clearly go to court and pursue every avenue that the law affords us to try and get back the monies. It is just that time is of the essence, the application to seize of be able to contain the money for 3 months in the first instance is to be heard by the magistrate in Orange Walk. If the magistrate grants that, we go to the supreme court. By the time we get to the 3rd, the 3 months would have passed and these people are saying 'we cannot operate for 3 months without our capital, this will destroy our business, all these people will lose their jobs'. At the end of the day of course, I believe that the Government is exposing itself to a whole heap of damages if what they are doing results in the destruction of these people business."
