Mass robbery, rape near El Pilar
It may not have resulted in any deaths, but a mass robbery and rape Sunday morning in the Cayo District has police, local residents and government officials determined to solve the crime. The incident, reminiscent of the 1999 hold-up and murder on the Hummingbird Highway, took place on the road between Bullet Tree and the Maya site of El Pilar, not far from the Guatemala border. Like the robbery three years ago, unsuspecting motorists were pulled over by armed men before they could react to what was happening. Among the victims of Sunday’s attack was Belize City Councillor Raymond Cox.
Raymond Cox, Robbery Victim
“At about a mile and a half from Bullet Tree, we saw a vehicle a small car with license plate 162700 parked across the road driven by a Belizean. So at the time we thought he had mechanical problems, but then people inside the vehicle was telling us don’t stop because it looked like a kidnapping. So we decided to get back in the vehicle and move out, when we saw two individuals of Spanish descent come out of the bushes with masks on their faces, bandannas, different things like that, carrying Twenty-two rifles. They fired shots at the vehicle forcing us to pull off on the side on a feeder road. When we reached in there, we saw that they had about six other vehicles in there already in the bushes and people lined on the side, faced down, hands tied behind their backs. That’s when the guy, both of them, attacked me with machetes and guns, put me on the ground faced down you know lashed with machetes that sort of thing tied faced down on the ground. And then again went ahead and robbed us of our money, jewelry, cell phones. They went into the vehicles, strip the vehicles of what they wanted. That whole ordeal went on about an hour. They literally went through the vehicles doing what they want, taking what they want and had everybody tied up; kids tied up, a real cold crowd. We didn’t realised it was only four of them but the way they did it you know it was very difficult in the bushes to realise exactly how much it was. But we realised afterwards that it was only four. Why? They quickly grabbed the men tied them up very, very quickly so we didn’t have any chance of overpowering them.”
Jacqueline Woods
“Mr. Cox the police believe that the incident is the work of Belizean criminals who my have connection to other criminals across the border. Do you believe this is the case from what you saw?”
Raymond Cox
“Yes. Based on the vocab, because Spanish in the Melchor area, they use a specific vocab, while Belizean Spanish use a different vocab. And we realise that there were four of them, and out of the four we are convinced that one of them is Belizean or at least live here. He speaks Spanish, but he was also talking what they call “Spanglish”; he spoke Spanish along with Creole. That’s what led us to believe he at least live or mingle here in Belize. And earlier in the day we saw an individual pass on a horse. So based on the way the whole operation was carried out, we believe that they came across on horse, had the horses tied up in the bushes and after they got through with us, use one of the vehicles to get away. They went about a mile down the road, then they went through some picados on horses. So we are sure that they had a Belizean, a person living or mingling here in Belize working along with them.”
Jacqueline Woods
“Authorities are saying that an American woman was also repeatedly raped. Were you there at the time when this incident happened?”
Raymond Cox
“No, we reached…we were the last group to be pulled in. But after everybody was getting out, we realised some were hurt real bad, some females were raped. But we weren’t there for that.”
Jacqueline Woods
“You say some females. More than one?”
Raymond Cox
“Report that more than one female. Because from the station they got one report… because everybody that were out there didn’t go to the station. Some were really pissed and really frustrated and frightened. Because people have on masks, you don’t know who they are, if they will come back, if they will grab you again, so people are really scared, so they just want to run somewhere safe and get away from the whole thing. So what we did from our group, the males went to the station, gave our names and phone numbers. Because we are trying to find out, see what we could do to help, and we cannot tolerate this type of crap going on. I mean, here we are in Belize doing all sort of things to talk about fighting crime, and to have people coming here doing that sort of thing. We know that we have police in Calla Creek area and Serious Crimes in the Calla Creek area, but the way they are operating, coming on horses, they blend into the Belizean living in that area. Then pull this crap off with masks and pull it back off and just take off disappearing into the bushes. So we got to begin to operate much smarter than the way we are right now.”
Cox believes that the entire incident took place over a period of two to two and a half hours. Police have detained one man and are looking for others. According to a police release, authorities from Guatemala are co-operating in the hunt for the bandits.
