San Pedro woman returns to face theft charges

In crime news, some highly creative accounting has landed a twenty-four year old San Pedro clerk in a whole heap of trouble. Police on the island are accusing Ruth Guerra of embezzling over fifty six thousand dollars from the Island Marketers Gas Station between August and September. Here is how it allegedly happened. Guerra, who had been working with the company for a little under a year, was responsible for depositing daily receipts for both the gas station and its parent company, the Belize Yacht Club. According to police, when Guerra went to the bank, she deposited the Club’s money but held on to the gas station’s receipts. To try and cover her tracks, Guerra allegedly destroyed the fourteen original deposit slips from the chief accountant and then made up her own so that it appeared like the money was in the bank. Guerra who had departed for Miami was returned to Belize this week with the help of U.S. authorities to face a battery of charges including theft, fourteen counts of forgery, fourteen counts of uttering a false document and twenty eight counts of false accounting. And it appears that more charges may be forthcoming. Late this evening News Five learned that additional forged deposit slips have been uncovered. Guerra appeared in the Belize City Magistrate’s Court this morning and was offered bail of twenty thousand dollars. Up to news time, however, we could not confirm whether or not she met the bail.