Stolen vehicles turned over to U.S. Embassy

Close to half a million dollars worth of sports utility vehicles are tonight impounded at the Customs Department ready for shipment back to Uncle Sam. Belizean authorities on Tuesday officially handed over the cars to the U.S. Embassy following months of investigations. A U.S. Embassy spokesman says that the vehicles were stolen in Texas and California and brought to Belize. A ?99 Cadillac Escalade, stolen from the General Motors Corporation, was imported by fugitive James Harold who was captured in November of last year by Belizean authorities and subsequently extradited to the U.S. Other vehicles in the fleet that will be shipped north early next week include a 2002 Toyota RAV4, 2002 Nissan Xtera, 2003 Lincoln Navigator, and a 2003 Cadillac Escalade. News Five attempted to speak with Customs officials to find out the identity of the importers of the other three vehicles, but we were told the Comptroller of Customs was in a meeting and his deputy would not take our calls. But the return of the two hundred thousand U.S. dollars worth of stolen vehicles represents just a fraction of the traffic between Belize and the States. The U.S. Embassy estimates that over the last two years alone, over a million U.S. dollars worth of stolen vehicles have been imported into Belize. This week the United States National Insurance Crime Bureau provided training for customs and police officers, as well as personnel from the forensic lab, on how to detect stolen vehicles. The two-day workshop ended on Tuesday with the agency donating ten thousand dollars worth of technical equipment to the Customs and Police Departments including digital cameras, computers and other items.