Guatemalans Serve Five Year Sentence

Via Phone: Insp. Ernel Dominguez

A pair of Guatemalan men found hunting in Belizean territory illegally is spending the first night of a five-year sentence at the Belize Central Prison.  Thirty-five-year-old Emilio Chub and twenty-five-year-old Erasmo Vasquez were poaching near Machakilha when they were busted by a team of law enforcement officers on patrol in the area.  The men were found with game meat, as well as unlicensed firearms and ammunition.  It took two days of trekking before the officers were able to exit the forest and take their captives to Punta Gorda Town.  There the duo was arraigned on various firearms related offences and subsequently sentenced to prison.  News Five spoke with Deputy O.C. Ernel Dominguez of Punta Gorda Police.

Via phone: Inspector Ernel Domínguez, Deputy O.C., Punta Gorda Police

“On Sunday, November thirtieth, 2014, sometime after 3:30 p.m., BDF personnel along with special patrol unit of the police were conducting a patrol in the Machakilha area in the Toledo District where they came across two Hispanic male persons armed with firearms each.  Each person was approached by them where the firearms were taken away and a search was conducted on their persons, where cartridges were found matching the firearm.  One of the firearms was a twelve gauge shotgun and the other was a sawed-off twenty gauge.  Both persons were escorted to the Punta Gorda Town police station where police filed charges against both of them.  They were identified as one Erasmo Vasquez Ramirez, twenty-four-year-old Guatemalan and Emilio Chub, thirty-five-year-old Guatemalan of Clarisal Village, as well.  The charges filed against them were: Ramirez was charged for kept unlicensed firearm and ammunition and Chub was charged for prohibited firearm and unlicensed ammunition, kept ammunition without a gun license. Both of them were taken before the Punta Gorda Town Magistrates Court, before Magistrate Emerson Banner where they pleaded guilty to the charges.  Ramirez was sentenced to five years for the kept firearm without a gun license and the ammunition, as well.  Emilio Chub was fined three years for the prohibited firearm and five years for the ammunition, both [sentences] should run concurrently.  Both persons were escorted to the Kolbe Foundation today by police.”

Isani Cayetano

“Is it believed that these individuals may have been hunting illegally in Belizean territory?”

Via Phone: Insp. Ernel Dominguez

“At the time they were caught they were also found in possession of some kind of meat from the forest.  I think it was gibnut, from what I was made to understand.  But the meat would not have lasted were they to bring it to Punta Gorda because it took them about two days from that point to where they could have been transported.  So the meat was disposed of by the personnel in authority.”