3 charged with human trafficking

Three residents of Paraiso Village in the Corozal District have been arrested for transporting persons for the purpose of exploitation as prostitutes. Police say last Thursday a police constable riding a bus en route to Belize City from Benque became suspicious of a young man in the company of five Hispanic women. He began to ask questions and discovered the women were from Melchor and in the country illegally. Their escorts, nineteen-year-old Alfonso Daniel Zuniga, twenty-one year old Martin Zuniga, and thirty-nine year old Martha Pagoda have been jointly charged under Belize’s human trafficking law. The Immigration Department is dealing with the five victims.