It is the public culmination of a week of embarrassment for the Customs Department as today three of their own, two of them veteran officers, were taken to the Magistrate’s Court and charged like common criminals. 36 year old Carl Augustine, an officer with 16 years in the job, 33 year old Aruny Perez, who has been with the department for 10 years and 21 year old Michael McKenzie, were all charged with one count each of forgery of an official document. Perez was charged with an additional count of forgery.
Customs and Police investigations reveal that they facilitated the smuggling of an unauthorized forty foot container from out of the Port Compound on Tuesday evening. The investigation shows that they forged documents which allowed the container to be released. The container has not been recovered, but authorities suspect that it contained ten million pseudo ephedrine tablets. This evening Assistant Commissioner of Police and the Commander of Operations Crispin Jeffries and the Commander of National Crimes Investigation James Magdaleno briefed the media on the arrest of all three Customs officers. According to Jefferies and Magdaleno it is quite likely that other Customs officers may be detained and questioned.
Sr. Supt. James Magdaleno, National Crimes Investigation Branch
“The Customs officers are Carl Augustine, Aruny Perez, and Michael McKenzie. All three are charged for forgery of an official document and that
relates to the Excise Department container application form. They were charged for forging that document. Aruny Perez was additionally charged for forgery of an official document likewise but this time it was for a Port of Belize pay bill. Those were the charges that were levied on the three Customs officers today. They have been taken to court.”
Crispin Jeffries, Assistant Commissioner of Police
“There is a process put in place since the initial incident. That has been revisited and the forms that were forged, as Mr. Magdaleno pointed out, are in fact some of the steps that were in place and those were enhanced, in that there was a limited amount of persons who were authorized to sign off on those forms. What happened is that the day in question someone unauthorized forged the signature which is why that incident occurred. So there are certain persons who are authorized to sign and witness the release of the container and the departure from the Port compound and they were not around.”
In court the police prosecution objected to bail stating that if the Customs officers are released they would hinder the ongoing investigations but Magistrate Margaret Gabb-McKenzie was not convinced. All three Customs officers were then granted bail of six thousand dollars each plus one surety of the same amount.
