Cayo bartender charged in forged cheque scam

A Cayo bartender is tonight accused of orchestrating a con to steal thousands of dollars from an exclusive hotel in the Stann Creek district. According to Roberto Fabbri, manager of Kanantik Reef and Jungle Resort, last Thursday he found out that six company cheques were missing from the Belize Bank cheque book. When bank officials in Dangriga searched their records, they found two of the cheques, made out for a total of seventeen thousand six hundred dollars, which had both been cashed by one Anna Moreira on April eleventh and April twenty-first respectively. When Moreira returned to the bank a third time with another cheque, this time made out for eighty-eight hundred dollars, the police were called in. When the cops questioned the young woman, she told them that she was cashing the cheques for her friend whom she knew as Scott Collins. But subsequent investigations have revealed that Scott Collins is actually thirty-one year old Cesar Scott of San Ignacio who up until March twenty-fourth, had worked at Kanantik as a bartender. According to Moreira, Scott asked her to cash the cheques and then gave her a total of four hundred and fifty dollars for her trouble. Scott has since been charged by police with two counts of Forgery but other offences such as Claiming Upon a False Document are expected to be filed later this week against the accused. Police have recovered one other cheque and are now trying to determine how Scott accessed the cheque book in the first place.