Police and immigration personnel were “in their thing” last night and into the early morning, making multiple raids of suspected human trafficking sites and passport fraud rings in the city. And they hit the jackpot at 4:30 this morning when they searched the home of Ghanaian Sampson Boateng and Irma Valencia who live on Smith Street in Belize City. They found passports for various countries, related documents and computers at that address. Documents and passports were also found in the toilet, presumably they were trying to flush away the evidence.
From Smith Street, the police and immigration team raided another home, the residence of Gwame Boakye – also a Ghanaian at the corner of Partridge Street and the Western Highway where they found more of the same.
In all they found more than two dozen passports for six African nations: 2 from Nigeria, 9 from Ethiopia, 1 from South Africa, 8 from Ghana, 4 from Eritrea, 1 from Swaziland and for good measure, two from the Dominican Republic. More importantly, fake immigration stamps mimicking the ones used by Belizean authorities were also found. They had a permanent residence stamp, a Belize visa stamp and a visa extension stamp.
Investigators believe how it used to work is like this: the passports were mailed from the genuine owners to the Ghanaian ringleaders in Belize. Once in Belize, the Ghanaians would stamp the passports with the fake Belize visa stamps – and then the passports would be returned to the owners to be used as they wish, bearing apparently legitimate Belizean immigration stamps.
Police have detained 53-year-old Boateng, his wife 49-year-old Irma Valencia and 26-year-old Boakye pending charges. Up to this evening, those charges had not been laid police and immigration personnel were at the DPP’s office trying to determine what charges are applicable.
