Money laundering case against Bze Bank delayed by 2nd snafu

Following a technicality on Monday morning, the case against the Belize Bank and its president Philip Johnson on seventy-nine counts of failing to report a suspicious transaction had been adjourned until Friday. Or at least that’s what Magistrate Sharon Fraser thought. It turns out that even though Fraser had scheduled the case on her calendar for this morning, when Sergeant Bernard Reyes of the Financial Intelligence Unit issued the new summons to Johnson, the appearance date was set for May twenty-first, next week Wednesday. Fraser wasn’t happy with the turn of events but couldn’t do anything about it since neither Johnson, his attorney Eamon Courtenay, nor Prosecutor Merlene Moody showed up to proceed with the matter this morning. The charges against Johnson are in connection to a series of deposits at the Belize Bank in 2002 when the Government introduced a system of Casas de Cambio to facilitate foreign exchange transactions. The F.I.U. claims the deposits violated Section thirteen of the Money Laundering (Prevention) Act because the bank failed to report a suspicious transaction to the F.I.U.