Shoman: “I put my confidence in the authorities”

For months now, businessman Jose Shoman has been prominently featured in several investigations involving stolen cars being imported to Belize. Today Shoman broke his silence over the issue, granting News 5 an off-camera interview to claim complete innocence to the accusation that his 2003 Hummer was stolen from the United States. This morning Shoman produced documents from the Belize Customs Department, which he says proves beyond doubt that he paid full value for the truck, some fifty-one thousand U.S. dollars and paid duty to the government, another sixty-eight thousand Belize dollars. Shoman says he never commissioned anyone to import the vehicle on his behalf nor did he do so himself. Rather, the businessman says he was at the Customs compound in January clearing merchandise for his store when another businessman approached him and offered to sell him the H2. Shoman declined to name the importer, but states the vehicle was thoroughly investigated by both the Customs Investigation Unit and the Joint Intelligence Crime Committee and given a clean bill of health, even before he ever paid any money for the truck. He says that the information was double checked and re-verified by Customs before ownership of the H2 was transferred and the vehicle released to him. Shoman says “I put my confidence in the authorities.” But this week those same Belizean authorities, namely the Belize Customs Department, received a letter from the U.S. Embassy informing them that their own investigation had concluded that Shoman’s Hummer, and a 2003 Cadillac Escalade released to Belize City businessman Luke Espat, are believed to be stolen. The U.S. officials asked that the trucks be seized and thoroughly inspected. But Shoman denies that he ever received any official notification from either the U.S. Embassy or the Belize Customs Department regarding any such investigation and says he has not been asked to “voluntarily bring in his truck for further inspection”, a claim the Customs Department made earlier this week. Shoman says should any such request be made to him, he would seek legal advice from his attorney. Furthermore, the Belize City businessman states that should it ever be verified that there is anything amiss with his vehicle, because customs cleared and released the H2, he would ask that the duty he paid to government be returned to him as well as the money he paid for the truck. News 5 was unable to establish contact with the legal advisor for the Belize Customs Department, Gian Ghandi, for his comments to Jose Shoman’s claims.