Security beefed up at UB following dorm robbery

On May eighth, six armed and masked men entered a dormitory at the University of Belize Central Campus in Belmopan. Nine students were tied up by the men who wielded handguns and shotguns, and their rooms were ransacked for over an hour. The men, described as Hispanic, made off with over forty-thousand dollars in cash, laptops, cell-phones and other personal items. Today News Five checked in with Belmopan Police for an update, and also to a representative from the university who told us that since the incident, security has been beefed up considerably.

Sinquest Martinez, Officer Commanding, Belmopan

“We haven’t got much as we wanted but we are following other information that has been coming in to our investigation room. We have detained some persons of interests likewise from within that Maya Mopan area. Prior to that robbery, there was a robbery on Monday—the Monday before the UB robbery—and we put those together and we could have seen a similar pattern pertaining to those robberies. And we continue to pick up people of interests from within the area that could assist us in this investigation.”

Selwyn King

Selwyn King, Office of Information, UB

“Anyone is traumatized by any robbery incident. The students are traumatized. We brought in the counselors. We engage in counseling the students.”

Sinquest Martinez

“From long, from even before I was here, we had a UB patrol from Monday to Friday from five p.m. to eight p.m. Prior to that robbery two of my officers were on the compound until about 8:15 and we responding to that report at 8:40. So my officers were out there patrolling and we continue to ask them with the security of the University of Belize.”

Sinquest Martinez

Selwyn King

“If you’re gonna ask me if we have a hundred percent safe-proof. We try for a hundred percent safe proof. What we are doing is all measures that will be put in place as beef it up, strengthening up our security patrol instead of patrolling every hour. We try for a hundred percent safe proof. What we are doing is all measures that we will put in place in terms of beefing it up, such as security patrol instead of patrolling every house. We are creatures by nature in terms of our do to in terms of our timing. People know exactly when we leave the home in the morning and when we return. So we have to mix that up in terms of our timing. In terms of lighting the area, we are going to like at that.”

The students who were robbed were athletes on the University’s Scholarship Program and also international students from the English as a Second Language Program at the Regional Language Center.