As we told you last night, the customs department is investigating a car that they impounded two days ago. It was being driven by an off duty police officer with his brother as a passenger.
The vehicle entered the country around 2018 - but was never processed by customs and was then fraudulently registered, licensed and insured.
That's because the Spanish made vehicle, a 2017 SEAT Ibiza was stolen in Mexico in July of 2017.
The Commissioner told us that the officers likely had no knowledge since it was in their mom's name:
Chester Williams, Commissioner of Police
"While the two police officers were found in the vehicle, the vehicle does not belong to them. The vehicle belonged to their mother. Their mother bought the vehicle in 2018 from a person in Corozal Town."
"The vehicle was licensed and insured. Custom confirmed that when the vehicle was licensed and insured, it was done with fraudulent documents, not by the mother whose name the vehicle is in now, but by the person from whom she bought the vehicle."
"So if your mother have a vehicle that she bought from someone, believing that the vehicle was legitimately bought or brought into the country, here you are driving your mother's vehicle. You are stopped by customs and police. They learnt the vehicle is stolen. You think it is going to be fair for them to hold you accountable for it? No. I personally don't see nothing wrong on the part of the two officers. They were simply driving a vehicle that belonged to their mother."
Jules Vasquez
"Maybe you are taking a benign interpretation."
Chester Williams, Commissioner of Police
"No."
Jules Vasquez
"Sometimes we put our family members, the most innocent of our family members, or sometimes people put the most innocent of their family members in positions to make certain transfers so that it does not draw attention."
Chester Williams, Commissioner of Police
"But Jules, the lady owned the vehicle before those two young men were police."
Jules Vasquez
"One of these police officers, I know, to be very close to you, I believe he work right downstairs of your office. Explain to me what is your knowledge about this and why haven't these people been charged?"
Chester Williams, Commissioner of Police
"Jules, I don't know. But every police officer close to me. I am the commissioner of police. We have, over the past few years, confiscated a number of stolen vehicles. And I mean vehicles that have been stolen abroad."
"I guess you have heard Yhony Rosado, about a year ago. ranting about stolen vehicles being taken away from him. Honestly, have you ever, in the history of the confiscation of stolen vehicles, saw that anybody has been arrested for them?"
"It is a matter for customs. Customs."
Jules Vasquez
"These have no customs entry though."
Chester Williams, Commissioner of Police
"Let me get to that, right. It's a matter for customs. If customs believe that they were the importer of the vehicle and they evaded customs duties, then customs have a formula that they would apply to be able to recover the duty and punish the person or persons."
"Couple of years ago, when Mr. Gibson was the comptroller of customs, Mr. Gibson had notified me of, I think two suspected stolen vehicles that they believe the same family had owned den. This was, I think, in 2019."
"And he told me of it. And I said to Mr. Gibson, if you have information that the vehicles are stolen, then by all means, please proceed and look into it. I do not want to appear as if I am taking side for nobody."
"Mr. Gibson, I think, got involved, custom went, inspected the vehicles, said that the vehicles were not stolen and returned them to the family. And this vehicle was one of those vehicles. So I am wondering now why in 2019, they had said that the vehicle was not stolen and now in 2023, they are now saying that the vehicle is stolen."
"I don't know, it's a matter for customs, I'm not going to interfere in what they do."
Reports say Customs is investigating a ring of a number of stolen cars related to this one.
