Police investigate B.T.L. theft
For a company that handles millions of dollars every year, the disappearance of a few thousand dollars may seem insignificant. But Belize Telecommunications Limited is taking very seriously the theft of thousands of dollars from their downtown office over the weekend. The concern is all the greater because, despite tight security, certain staff members have been implicated.
Sometime after six on Saturday evening a person or persons gained access to B.T.L.’s safe inside the company branch office on Church Street and walked out of the building with over sixty thousand dollars in cash, checks and tele-cards. According to Gaspar Aguilar, B.T.L.’s financial controller, they first became aware of the problem after a cashier who reported to work Monday morning, opened the safe and discovered that the five deposit bags, containing Friday and Saturday’s collection were gone. Aguilar says because of the company’s tight security, they strongly suspect the robbery was an inside job.
Gaspar Aguilar, Financial Controller, B.T.L.
“The level of security that we have, we handle a large volume of money and we have a twenty-four (hour) security plus we have surveillance cameras and the cashiers have their own control measures that they must follow. For example when they collect the money it has to be secured in individual bags and that’s put in a safe under a combination lock. To access that area you would need keys plus know the combination of the safe. If it was an external thing, there would have been signs of breakage, you know forceful entry; there were none of those signs.”
Aguilar says whoever committed the crime, also had to know when the camera would be pointed in another direction. This, Aguilar says explains why they did not see anything unusual on the surveillance tape when they viewed it on Monday. While no arrests have yet been made, C.I.B. detained two cashiers and a security officer for questioning. Gaspar Aguilar says it has to have been a joint effort between staff members.
Gaspar Aguilar
“I am personally convinced that it is collusion. Not just the cashier alone could have pulled this off. There are too many variables that would have interfered with something like this. So I am convince that collusion is there.
It’s difficult because we believed that our system was one of the best. I mean you can’t do much more than have a twenty-four hour security and surveillance cameras and control measures that you put in with your people that collect cash. It’s really just depending on that screening process and hoping that you have made the right choice when you employ people.”
As for those B.T.L. customers who made payments to their accounts over the weekend, Aguilar says there is no need to worry, as all payments recorded will be honored.
Gaspar Aguilar
“Well, we have a record of the payments, so the payments will be honored. We will claim a certain amount from the insurance; we have a certain amount of deductible and stuff like that. So we will bear the lost and then the insurance will possibly reimburse us for some.”
According to A.I.P. Simeon Alvarez, Head of C.I.B., while they have made no arrests as yet, they have detained two of B.T.L.’s cashiers whom they believe can assist them in the investigation.
This evening police told News Five there appears to have been a six-minute interruption in the operation of the surveillance camera on Sunday. Police say their investigation continues.
