And, in another update to a story we ran last night about the Port of Dangriga project and its involvement with Mexican Raul Rocha - there's a sharp change tonight. Rocha is under investigation for drug, gun and fuel trafficking between Guatemala and Mexico. And when we publicized his advertised involvement in the project - well that triggered an early morning release from the owners of the Commerce Bight Port, the Southern Deep Port Development Ltd.
To put the new information in context Jules Vasquez went back to the groundbreaking for the project in 2024.:
The coastline, a pine ridge forest and the Maya Mountains as a backdrop - there are few places as picturesque as Commerce Bight, about a mile and a half south of Dangriga.
But it also has the deepest waters of any port in Belize.
Emilio Basillio Zabaneh, Developer
"Many Belizeans are unaware that Commerce Byte is the only naturally occurring deep water port in Belize."
And that's why Tourism Investor Basilio Zabaneh is spearheading a 50 million Belize dollar pocket tourism and luxury yacht project.
Ground was broken on Friday with the Area rep, the Prime Minister and the Minister of Tourism there.
Southern Deep Port Development Ltd will have to find 50 million dollars.
Jules Vasquez
"It is something that will be able to find financing to reach completion."
Anthony Mahler, Minister of Tourism
"Yeah. As you know, and you're well read and in tune, that $50 million is a pittance for these types of projects these days. And it's, a lot of money is out there. And we believe that I think Belize is a hot destination. And there are investors out there who would want to invest their money into Belize."
John Briceno, Prime Minister
"To be able to uplift it."
And a big part of stoking that investor confidence is contained in this document - the parliament approved public private partnership contract. - which makes government more than a vested interest, they're actually shareholders:
Jules Vasquez
"I saw the PPP agreement that you all drafted for him, the concessions are very lavish. How do you justify those?"
John Briceno, Prime Minister
"But it is nothing different than what other previous governments have done. Actually, we cut it down, and that is why it was sent back, at least 2 or 3 times in Cabinet, because we felt it was way too much."
That was August 2024, and 9 months later in May of 2025, Raul Rocha's Legacy Holding announced that it was, quote, "formally engaged" to, quote. "spearhead the conceptual and technical oversight of the new state-of-the-art port facility in Dangriga."
Another release said Legacy Holding "has completed an initial regional study aimed at evaluating the tourism potential of the area surrounding the future site of the Dangriga Port."
7 months later that site is still up -but this morning the project's parent company sent out a remarkable release saying, basically, they didn't know. The release says, quote, "It came to our attention yesterday that Legacy Holdings of Mexico has information on a website promoting a project at "Port of Dangriga". This is unauthorized and we have requested that they remove the information immediately."
Now, we note that if you search for Port of Dangriga or Dangriga cruise port the Rocha site is the first one that comes up.
The release goes on to acknowledge that Southern Deep Port Development quote, "had discussions with Legacy Holdings based on their stated interest in investment opportunities in Belize. Those discussions started in April and ended in September of this year, and no business or investment partnership was established with them."
But, there must have been a mighty miscommunication which led to the development of this site which remains live tonight - even though Legacy's principal Raul Rocha remains under investigation for his links to organized crime. And reports say there is a warrant for his arrest."
The release says SDPDL continues to work on developing the Commerce Bight Port but offers no details of progress.
