The government check forgery scam is tonight looking more like a scandal as two government employees have been arrested and the forged government checks have turned up in four different municipalities. The alleged mastermind is 29 year old Dangriga resident Lino Herrera but police have also arrested brothers Kenton and Leslie Serrano – both are employees at government departments in Dangriga. Police have also recovered thee boat engines, two laptops, and a lawn mower – all of which were bought with forged government checks. _Keith Swif_t has the update on the widening investigation.
Keith Swift Reporting,
Police say the trail of forged government checks written by Lino Herrera and now Leslie Serrano stretches across the country.
Supt. Aaron Guzman, Commander - CIB
“This morning Lino Herrera along with Leslie Serrano was taken to Magistrate’s Court in Belize where they were charged jointly for conspiracy to obtain property by deception. And when they are trough from court in Belize City, they will be escorted to Belmopan as it is Belmopan that has charges for Lino Herrera right now and charges for other persons. I must tell you in reference
to one computer that was recovered in Dangriga and charges were laid on two persons there, another computer has been recovered in Independence from the same company PC.Com in Belmopan. There were other businesses that were defrauded in Belmopan, namely Builders Hardware and Papi’s.
The San Ignacio issue is as a result of a riding mower that was obtained from Western Tractors in Spanish Lookout. They made their complaint in San Ignacio and Dangriga Police have recovered the said riding mower.”
Leslie Serrano works at the Labor Department in Dangriga. Police say him and Herrera were co-conspirers but they didn’t discuss Serrano’s specific involvement.
Supt. Aaron Guzman,
"Obviously Leslie as we believe in the Marelco case why we preferred the charges was that he was working in collusion with Lino Herrera. We did find some evidence which led us to believe that yes he is involved. You have to understand this matter will go before the court so I will not discuss it in details.”
But the detail we do know is that there have been already been four arrests and police say this may only be the tip of the iceberg.
ACP Allan Whylie,
“With these sorts of investigations, obviously these illegal activity had been occurring over a period of time and you will find since we apprehend those persons and they have been charged, other business houses will be checking their records to see if this had occurred. So you will find as people are checking, they will be finding and making reports and the investigation will be ongoing.”
Supt. Aaron Guzman,
“The investigation by the police into this scam will be going on I believe for the next week or so.”
As mentioned – Leslie Serrano was charged in Belize City’s Magistrate’s Court this morning for conspiracy to obtaining property by deception. This morning in court Serrano, who works at the Labor Department in Dangriga, told the Magistrate he had lent Herrera his computer at work and that’s why the paper trial led back to him. He was granted 5 dollars bail but a surety in the same amount.
