Last night on 7News - we spoke with land fraud whistleblower Eddie De La Rosa.
De La Rosa is a former UDP political operator in the Cayo District - who left the country some years ago after being involved in the dirty depths of a ruthless political machine.
Now, he's risen to prominence as a whistleblower after Minister of Natural Resources Cordel Hyde detailed an alarming land fraud system coming out of the UDP Cayo Central area.
Minister Hyde says dozens of people unwittingly had their name and social security numbers used to acquire parcels of public land. Without their knowledge - and with a faked signature - these phantom owners would then flip the properties into he ownership of politically connected persons or companies.
How many people did this happen to without their knowledge? Appearing this morning on PLUS TV's Rise and Shine, De La Rosa said it was over 100 - including one dead man:
Host
"How many people did you processed with that kind of social security signed on the behalf, passed it off to a false JP, whatever. How many people would you say roughly were used in this scheme?"
Eddie De La Rosa, Whistleblower
"More than a hundred. They had a gentleman that got into an accident and he died some years aback and they had land in his name, but guess what, the land is already transferred into some of their names and the man had already died."
Host
"Did he know that he had land in his name?"
Eddie De La Rosa, Whistleblower
"No. Six months after he died the land got transferred. They find the man name and did what they had to do and the land ended up in somebody's name now."
Host
"Could you give an extent of the general area where they were selecting lands or doing land flips or land transactions?"
Eddie De La Rosa, Whistleblower
"San Pedro, Mountain Pine Ridge, Head and Chicken Caye, Young Gial, Yalbac, Buena Vista, Santa Elena, Cristo Rey, San Antonio - that's what I can recall just off my head."
