Chinese Man Gets Bail

Jin Zhou Wu

An Asian man who has given his address as Prince Street, Punta Gorda Town, Toledo and Calcutta Village, Corozal was granted bail today, one week after he was remanded to the Belize Central Prison on six counts of Trafficking in Persons.  Justice Herbert Lord granted forty-one-year-old Jin Zhou Wu bail in the sum of fifteen thousand dollars, plus two sureties of seven thousand five hundred dollars each.  Wu must abide by a number of conditions in order to maintain his freedom before trial.  The charges against Wu arose out of reports made by three Honduran young women in early June, who claimed that they had been subjected to mistreatment and threats and were forced to prostitute themselves while in Wu’s care for one week.  The young women, whose ages are twenty and twenty-one , told police that they were duped by a woman in Honduras earlier this year who told them that she could provide well-paid waitressing jobs for them and that they could stay at her place in Bella Vista Village.  They claim the woman also told them that they didn’t need any travel documents to enter Belize.  They fell for the offer and they crossed into Belize illegally along with the woman in early June.  Wu, whose alias is Joe, reportedly picked them up in Benque Viejo Town on June second and took all four of them to his house in Bella Vista Village, Toledo.  But the three women claimed they realized that they were being set up when Wu and the woman took away their cell phones and took them to Wu’s business, Sky Blue Bar in the village and forced them to engage in prostitution. Police ran up on the women and took them into custody then handed them to Immigration officials to investigate their case.  We have gathered that since the women made their report to the Police, the woman who befriended them in Honduras and reportedly brought them into Belize left the country.