Over a $100,000 missing from Free Zone business
Up north, Corozal police have teamed up with their Mexican counterparts to investigate a burglary at a store at one of the shopping plazas in the Corozal Free Zone. And while the incident occurred over the Christmas holidays, it is only now being reported and both Free Zone and police authorities are no closer to solving the crime today than they were when it happened. Two of the stores’ employees and its proprietors are being questioned on how two locks were removed from the shutters, and a safe containing over a hundred thousand dollars went missing. But interestingly, new locks were placed on the shutters by the time the business opened on Boxing Day. News Five spoke with Officer Commanding the Corozal Police, Superintendent Miguel Guzman, to find out how the investigation is going so far.
Via Phone: Supt. Miguel Guzman, O.C., Corozal Police
“An Indian person by the name of Shushil Arian Khiatani; the Indian businessman reported that he had closed his store, namely Tridez Store situated at the Plaza del Amo Corozal Free Zone at six p.m. on Thursday twenty-fourth of December and he returned at nine-thirty a.m. on December twenty-sixth when he discovered that the key did not correspond with the lock that secured the building. Eventually he called the police whereby upon entering he noticed that a safe measuring one and a half by two feet was missing. Basically that is the information that we had and that was the follow up that we were doing. We’re still in the process of the investigation. We have done a number of interviews, several house searches. We still continue with our investigations.”
Marion Ali
“You said that the locks were replaced or were different. Can you say what happened in that case?”
Via Phone: Supt. Miguel Guzman
“The padlocks were different. It is difficult to say at this point in time. I don’t want to speculate. All I can tell you is that when the proprietors attempted to open the store the keys did not correspond with the lock and that is when they observed that the locks were different than what they secured the door with on the twenty-fourth. We have spoken to the security on duty more or less at the time the burglary is suspected to have occurred. But again, we haven’t been able to come up with anything of value that we could follow. But it is something that is of concern to us and definitely I have in mind to meet with the management of the Corozal Free Zone to see how we can improve our preventative measures.”
Marion Ali
“Let’s go a little bit into what was in the safe that was stolen.”
Via Phone: Supt. Miguel Guzman
“At this point in time, I don’t have a figure. From what was reported, initially they said that it was a three week sale and then said that it was only four days sale that he had inside the safe. Another person had a package which he claims had like a hundred thousand dollars both in US and Pesos currency. But this has remained unconfirmed because nobody can verify that in fact this was in the package.”
Superintendent Guzman says police believe someone could have climbed over the fence to the Free Zone compound and committed the crime. He added that police will meet with Free Zone officials shortly to discuss ways of mitigating burglaries on the compound.
