Police investigation on passports nearly complete

In other news on the subject of immigration, News 5 has learned that the long running criminal investigation into the illegal sale of passports is nearing a conclusion. The results of the police probe are expected shortly on the desk of D.P.P. Kirk Anderson, who will then decide how to proceed. We understand that the investigation has turned up hundreds of successful applications for nationality and passports that appear to have been granted contrary to the law. While the police work focussed on those transactions made after the January fifteenth cancellation of the legal economic citizenship programme, immigration sources have informed News 5 that the illicit sale of nationality was going on at a brisk pace for years, even while the official programme was in existence. What apparently was happening was that applicants for economic citizenship passports who did not want to pay the official fifty thousand U.S. dollar fee, could instead purchase a Belizean passport obtained through a phoney declaration of five years residency. Under this scheme the agent received anywhere from five to thirty-five thousand dollars from the applicant, less any bribes required by officials. The government treasury received nothing.