850 cases! That's how many mislabelled boxes of top shelf liquor the Customs Department claims to have found in the Victor L Bryant Warehouse on Chetumal Boulevard yesterday.
As we showed you yesterday, Customs personnel took charge of the warehouse yesterday morning - following up on information that cases of liquor without the proper "Belize Market" labelling were stored inside.
After a few hours, they had to bring in a cargo truck to cart out all the mislabelled alcohol they found. That truck also had to make more than one trip.
The proper label is designed with brilliant colors and a hologram to make it difficult to make copies of. And the persons behind this operation didn't even seem to try too hard. 7News found this very poor imitation in the wild - and is reliably informed that this dissimilar to what this major operation was passing unto wholesale buyers, which include high end hotels and resorts.
Of course, the "Belize Market" label is not just for style - it proves that the bottle of alcohol has paid all duties, permits and taxes. And this one clearly didn't. So what's the total loss in revenue to the government? Our sources say more than a quarter million dollars!
We reached out to the Comptroller of Cusotms for comment on what happens next with all this alcohol - but up to newstime - she had not responded to our message.
