Police learn asset forfeiture from U.S. D.E.A.

It’s been a festering sore point in relations between the United States and Belize… that is, the perception that local law enforcement authorities were not as tough as they should be in the war against narcotics. But aside from criticism, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency is also offering a helping hand. A two-day seminar on asset forfeiture opened today at the Radisson Fort George Hotel and is being attended by over forty senior police investigators and special agents from around the country. While there are a number of topics on the agenda, police personnel and training officer Superintendent Jesus Matu says the concept of cooperation internationally in asset forfeiture is something that can work in Belize’s favor.

Jesus Matu, Police Personnel Officer

“The training is aimed at affording our Belize Police Force personnel an insight of how the Americans do their asset forfeiture programs in the United States. We do have a forfeiture policy here in Belize where people who are arrested and are found with monies or vehicles they have to go through the process of the courts and the courts confiscate these items, but we have now American policies and systems over there which they are coming over to share with us to see how we can probably benefit from their policies and mechanisms of asset forfeiture in the United States of America.

Well they are being taught how the Americans do their asset forfeiture mechanisms and we can learn from their system. Probably there is something we can implement here in Belize.”

Asset forfeiture is a situation where a person’s property is taken away by a government because it is obtained from the proceeds of crime, for example drug trafficking. The Asset Forfeiture and Narcotics Seminar is being sponsored by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency. Facilitators are special agent Wadie Crawford and South Florida Assistant Attorney Harry Wallace Junior, both from the U.S. Justice Department. The seminar ends on Thursday.