OWTC Distances Itself from Fake Drivers’ Licenses

Fake cops and fake driver’s licenses; while the Belize Police Department grapples with the issue of impersonators perpetrating crimes in the name of the law, the Orange Walk Town Council is under siege by fraudsters forging their driver’s licenses.  The sham was initially detected in San Pedro where the local traffic department noticed several discrepancies on the laminated document.  Despite putting into effect a new biometric system, copies of two existing licenses, one from the National Transport Department and another from the Orange Walk branch have been combined to create a false copy.   According to Mayor Kevin Bernard, a ring of forgers is operating out of the Sugar City.

Kevin Bernard, Mayor, Orange Walk Town

Kevin Bernard

“Let me make one clarification first of all.  Remember we have both the National Transport Orange Walk Department and we have the town council transport department that issues drivers license.  The drivers license that we have been informed of are those old laminated drivers license.  They are fake, first of all.  How we have identified that is that the date of issue is beyond the date that we had started when we implemented the new biometric driver’s license system.  The Orange Walk Town Council launched a biometric driver’s license system in April 2013.  We did a pre-launch in December of 2012.  So there were some few issues but then we wanted the regulations to pass and so on April first, we implemented fully the biometric driver’s license system.  Some of these licenses are issued after that date.  How they are shown that they are totally fake, one, it carries the signature of none of our officers, none of our previous traffic managers and at the back of that they are using they are using the stamp of the Orange Walk Transport Department.  So there are two conflicting things showing there.  They are using the Orange Walk Municipal traffic authority logo but it is not in sync because the drivers license numbers that are on those cards are also linked to other individuals that we have registered to them.”

Mike Rudon

“So there is absolutely no reason to believe that anyone involved with the town council or the traffic authority is involved in this ring to issue fake driver’s licenses?”

Kevin Bernard

“Definitely it’s not from the Orange Walk Town Council.  We believe that how they may have had access to the sampling of the cards because the old laminated cards are preprinted cards or somebody would have had to have typewritten those things.  So somebody may have had an old copy of a drivers license and using those fake formats, were trying to make a quick buck.  But at the end of the day the person has to go in for renewal and it is now showing that these people were be cheated first of all and they were part of an illegal scheme.”