Pinguino wines – it’s a San Pedro based enterprise that started importing California wine and bottling it under a Belize label in March of 2006. Made from California grapes and with the distinctive Pinguino logo – the fine wines were a hit on the local market – and were the only such wine to be sold in Belize. But now Pinguino is all but out of business – but it’s not because the win business soured; that was going great. What happened is that a Belizean conman, took the owners for all they had.
According to a police report that man is Abner Gomez who gained the confidence of Pinguino’s owner, Rick Davidson. Gomez told Davidson he would act as his Customs broker and because of his connections could get the wine – imported from California – cleared from Customs at a discount. Gomez’s opportunity to prove himself came on December 15th when Davidson received his Christmas stock of wine – 60 cases of it, 33 of them champagne which had been pre-sold. All totalled, the shipment valued fifty thousand Belize dollars. Not a huge shipment, but for this small company it was their entire Christmas stock. Gomez allegedly told Davidson he needed $5,800 to clear it form customs and the figure seemed comparable to what he had paid for previous imports, so Davidson paid up.
But he didn’t get the win; in fact, he still hasn’t! Now he’s taken his story to the police and today we met him at the Customs Department as he is trying to track down his lost shipment. He told us that the lies started shortly after the December fifteenth shipment arrived.
Rick Davidson, Owner – Pinguino Wines
“I said my wine is here, it is time to get it out and he said fine, no problem. What happened after that is that Carol got a call and said I could get your wine out of Customs today but I need ‘x’ amount of dollars which he actually sent via bank transfer to another person in Belize City so we could get our wine.”
Jules Vasquez,
That was $5,800?
Rick Davidson,
“That was $5,800 which he said he needed that day to get our wine out of Customs.”
Jules Vasquez,
Did you think twice, did you have any reservations?
Rick Davidson,
“Not really. He had my trust and his whole thing is he said it was very very possible I might be able to save you some money on your duty and it is not far off from what I would normally pay on that amount of wine. So I said, I wasn’t there, but Carol went, transferred the money, and sent it to a lady in Belize whose account I believe was Miss Beverly Wallace. The money was removed and that just became, ‘your wine will be here tomorrow, your wine will be here tomorrow, your wine will be here tomorrow.”
Jules Vasquez,
Now at this time you are coming up on the Christmas which is your high time for sales?
Rick Davidson,
“Oh yeah and Christmas is now past.”
Jules Vasquez,
So how was your business for Christmas?
Rick Davidson,
“My business for Christmas was non-existent.”
Jules Vasquez,
You didn’t have anything to sell?
Rick Davidson,
“No, my wine was gone. My red wine were sold out. 33 cases were champagne which I promised to a local business people would be here for Christmas, no later than New Years.”
Jules Vasquez,
You were then told that you had to go through another intermediary in the north.
Rick Davidson,
“Right. What had actually happened is I believe it was on New Year’s Eve day.”
Jules Vasquez,
At wit’s end at this point.
Rick Davidson,
“Totally, totally.”
Jules Vasquez,
You’re out of business, out of wine – everything.”
Rick Davidson,
“I have nothing really on shelves except for empty promises at which point in time I had loaned Mr. Gomez my golf cart to go out and solicit business on my behalf. I hadn’t seen him, finally I chased him down on my bicycle and started to give him the Fred Astaire song and dance and I said to meet me at the store at which point he tells me, ‘look this is too much aggravation for me, I don’t want any part of it – call this guy – he’s got your wine.’ So what he did is he just threw me in front of a bus with other people and it just got worse from there.”
Jules Vasquez,
So you went to see these other people in Corozal Town and they told you that you had to give them another $3,200?
Rick Davidson,
“That was to get my wine to San Pedro.”
Jules Vasquez,
And you still gave them.
Rick Davidson,
“Let me ask you a question: when you’ve already made a financial commitment in excess of $50,000 and all you want to do is just recover your property…”
Jules Vasquez,
And you gave them $3,200 more so that put you in the whole for $9,000.
Rick Davidson,
“$9,000 plus little bits of cash that I have everybody as we went. If I had to make a guess it is probably closer to $10,000 than it is to $9,000.”
Jules Vasquez,
Now you’ve pieced together a few things, what have you found out about what happened to your wine after it came here to the Port of Belize?
Rick Davidson,
“Well apparently, and this is another thing, what had happened was, and I just visited with Customs, in order to get it out of the Port of Belize my signature was forged and my wine was sold to a shell company in the Free Zone. They don’t exist, except by name. So if you’re asking me where my wine is, I am not 100% sure.”
Jules Vasquez,
So you’ve lost your wine.
Rick Davidson,
“I’ve lost my wine, I’ve lost my money and today we’re running a going out of business sale.”
Police have named the two persons in Corozal as Edwardo Correa and George Escalante. Police say they are investigating it as a case of extortion and are looking for those two men and Abner Gomez.
