If you've ever wondered how folks pay for all those fancy SUVs seen sporting about Belize, you might be surprised to know that many owners don't quite pay the full price, because a good number of those SUVs are stolen. Most are stolen from Guatemala, and because Belize has no stolen vehicle treaty with that country, they invariably wind up being legitimized either by the Customs, Transport or City Traffic Departments. 7NEWS is reliably informed that the processing of these vehicles has become its own thriving black market, with players at every level, dealing the vehicles in the underground and legitimizing them on the over ground.
Well now the City Council says that three of its employees may have been involved in the licensing of three stolen SUVs in September and August of this year. Councilor Dean Samuels says he's blowing the whistle on them. Samuels says his office called in Interpol when the vehicle identification numbers for three stolen SUVs came up in their system. The VINs were in the computer but when they looked in the files, critical documents, such as Customs entries were missing. The three employees who were involved in the licensing, two at the front desk and one in the records departments, have been placed on suspension, with full pay, until an internal investigation is concluded.
So where are these three vehicles now? Well Samuels said that they simply handed the information to Interpol, which is a desk within the Police Department. And this is where that non-existent treaty comes in. Many times, the SUVs are stolen form well-connected Guatemalans, but because there is no treaty, it's rare that the vehicles are returned from Belize. This inevitably leads to lengthy impoundment, a matter easily dissolved with some quick work by a few select local attorney's who, we are informed, are making a mini industry of springing the stolen rides.
In this case, we could not confirm where these vehicles are, but we do know that in Dangriga, Customs is investigating as many as 14 that were licensed by that town's government transport department, and about another dozen are impounded at Benque Viejo.
