Thieves Break Into C-NET+ Office
Over the weekend the C-NET+ office on Calle Al Mar Street, Belize City was vandalized. On Monday morning when the program coordinator arrived at work, he found that the office was broken into and various office computers and laptops were stolen. Police were called in and further checks revealed that the burglar or burglars gained access into the building through the backdoor by cutting the burglar bar. The brazen burglars ransacked the office, going through files and even taking time to drink coffee. It is not the first time that organization has been targeted. Back in 2012, armed robbers held up employees inside its Princess Margaret Drive office. The organization is asking for assistance to replace the stolen items. Eric Castellanos, Executive Director of C-NET+, told us about the incident.
Eric Castellanos, Executive Director, C-NET+
“The whole staff left Friday, we secured the place. I came by Saturday to check if everything was good—if I am in the city I normally check. I’m originally from Cayo so I went to Benque over the weekend and the staff doesn’t come to work. Monday morning at seven-forty-five when the project coordinator came to open the door—he was the first one to come—he called me immediately because he noticed that the door had been forced. What we did was that we called the police immediately and they came and the crime scene investigation department came and they took handprints and took photographs. But basically what happened is that our back burglar door was broken so they had to have some heavy equipment to break into. They took four laptops, one desktop, the external drives, the backup batteries and a microwave. It seems that they were here for a long period of time because the police say the whole place was a mess. They turned over the files. They took a coffee maker….it seems that they did coffee when they were here and then they spilled the coffee that they didn’t drink on top of the documents. So it is a big loss for us not only for material things, but also information that is very essential for us as an organization. It is very difficult because it is like a start again from zero. Some time ago, we had to move from where we were because that time we were assaulted by gunmen and at least this time the staff was not put in danger. The material things, little by little we will be able to get back, but it is unfortunate because we are serving a very needed population, which is persons living with HIV. We have several programs like the home visit program, we give out groceries here and we depend only on donations. So this is not a profit organization. The computers that we had, we got little by little over a period of time by donors, by private donations and it is going to be difficult to get them back.”
C-NET+ is a network of persons living with HIV. The N.G.O. was legally incorporated in 2011 and works primarily with persons living with HIV.