The conch season was closed earlier than usual this year. Notwithstanding its premature closure, the Fisheries Department has been working closely with its maritime counterparts to enforce all laws at sea. According to Gamboa, there has been a joint effort over the past two months to patrol several hotspots, including the area where the fishermen […]
Chilling video images of the police pepper spraying a pair of men in the south side of the Belize City have been circulating on social media. The video shows police using unnecessary force to restrain the men as spectators watched from the sidelines. It is known that police are cracking down on suspicious individuals due […]
On Sunday, June thirtieth, the final day of Pride Month, police officer Ralph Gillett was put in a chokehold while being a victim of homophobic insults. Gillett was arrested after being involved in a scandalous brawl with a couple of women inside a water taxi in Caye Caulker. The fight was over seating space. The […]
After the brawl, several witnesses went to the Caye Caulker Police station to file a statement of what they saw. They, however, were turned away and prohibited to enter the police station. Women Police Officer, Arbunie Claire attempted to file a witnessed statement but according to reports, she was manhandled and thrown in jail. During […]
Early on Wednesday night, two notorious siblings were shot to death on the north side of the city far from their home in the Port Loyola community. The duo, Maurice and Emory Felix, was released from prison in January of this year and they were to check in with the police twice weekly, including Wednesdays; […]
The body of a Dangriga resident was found miles away in the village of Frank’s Eddy on the George Price Highway. The murder, execution style, of forty-four year old Jermaine Balthazar Flores is baffling police. It presumably took place sometime on Wednesday night and the body found at around seven this morning in a bushy […]
In Hattieville, a twenty-three-year-old man was shot at around nine o’clock this morning at his house located in an isolated area of the village. Police recovered as many eight expended shells at the scene outside his house. Ozen Rhaburn is said to have been ambushed by someone he knew. A witness who heard the shots […]
There was a brazen daylight robbery at the PUMA gas station on New Road. The gas station has been held up in other instances. During the lunch hour on Wednesday, a pump attendant was held up at gunpoint by three robbers, one armed with a handgun. The thieves approached the unsuspecting employee and demanded that […]
The BAHA Quarantine team has implemented a number of measures to crack down on the contraband business. Those efforts include checkpoints for inspections, as well as surveillance and intelligence gathering to regulate imports to prevent entry of pests and diseases. The contraband problem is not unique to onions. There is also a Medfly outbreak along […]
The murders of well-known tour guide Mario Graniel and the highly respected American doctor Gary Swank, on June twenty-third in San Pedro, had an immediate negative impact on the tourism industry. The double murders made the headlines in the U.S. media resulting in a massive hit in overnight tourist arrivals to the country. In the […]
In 2018, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission investigated the largest real estate scam it has been faced with to date. The architect of the scam, U.S. national Andris Pukke, promised investors a lush piece of land, equipped with world class amenities on a fourteen thousand-acre property in southern Belize even as he sat in a […]
The New York Daily News is reporting that the recent murder of American doctor, Gary Swank, is deterring tourists from traveling to Belize. In fact, the head of the Belize Hotel Association Ted Tejeda today noted the cancellations following the murder. Dr. Swank was fatally shot along with San Pedro Tour guide Mario Graniel while […]
In western Belize, a store was robbed by two armed men on Tuesday afternoon. The Good Times Chinese Store located in San Ignacio fell prey to thieves at about four o’clock. The business owner was inside when the two robbers entered the building, one of them was armed and demanded money. His accomplice jumped over […]
In the courts, the murder trial of twenty-year-old Eldon Flowers is coming to an end. Today, the crown represented by Senior Crown Counsel for the D.P.P.’s office, Shanice Lovelle, closed her case after calling more than eight witnesses to the stand. The biggest hurdle has been over the crown’s main witness, who turned hostile and told […]
An attempted murder case stemming back from August of 2014 which was committed to stand trial in 2016 against a Belize City man ended in a nolle prosequi today. Ron Myvette was charged and granted bail months later in December 12, 2014 for the attempted murder of a well-known street figure, Calbert Budd Junior. Myvette […]
More cell phone images have surfaced about Sunday’s unfortunate incident on a water taxi from Caye Caulker. The images show the chokehold used by the police to restrain and subdue another officer, Ralph Gillett, who was involved in an altercation with a group of women travelling in the water taxi. The boisterous passengers are heard […]
The murder of fifty-seven-year-old Errol Crown, a resident of Neal Pen Road, remains an open investigation as police are still trying to determine his cause of death and who may have committed the senseless act. Regrettably, Crown’s family shares the same sense of cynicism that most families have come to accept following the loss of […]
Recent developments on Ambergris Caye have prompted the Belize Police Department to ramp up its presence on the island, where a series of incidents that are believed to be drug-related have been taking place. On Monday morning, sometime around five-thirty, police raided the homes of Alexander Fitzgibbon and Lucio Salazar, both fishermen of the Boca […]
All hell broke loose onboard a water taxi on Sunday afternoon loaded with passengers returning to the city from the popular Lobster Fest held in Caye Caulker. The brouhaha soon became violent and a young police officer was removed from the water taxi and subdued by another officer as he fell unconscious. To make a […]
Special Envoy for Women and Children Kim Simplis Barrow has weighed in on the matter. In a social media post, Simplis Barrow says that discrimination has no place in our communities. She adds that violence of this kind has no place in society. Executive Director for United Belize Advocacy Movement (UNIBAM) echoed similar sentiments saying […]
Sometime between Friday night and Saturday morning, a fifty-seven-year-old resident of Neal Penn Road in Belize City was murdered after a robbery inside his house. The body of Errol Crown was found around six-thirty a.m. outside his house with injuries to his head. Crown left a party at his daughter’s house and headed home before […]
Well-known street figure in San Pedro Town, twenty-three-year-old Christian Espat, has been released by police on the island. On Friday, Espat handed himself over to police in the company of his attorney Leeroy Banner. He was being sought for questioning in the double murder of popular tour guide Mario Graniel and prominent U.S. doctor Gary […]
The double murder of Mario Graniel and Doctor Gary Swank prompted the National Security Council of Belize to call an emergency meeting. The Security Council, which is chaired by Prime Minister Dean Barrow, has agreed to some immediate measures that will later be expanded. Additional officers have been deployed to the island and according to […]
Turning to the crime blotter…a brawl outside of a nightclub in Dangriga has left two persons injured with gunshot wounds after a police officer discharged his service issued weapon in an attempt to diffuse the melee. Edmond Cayetano and Raquel McKenzie were both struck by a single round fired by the responding officer who is […]
Not far away from Dangriga, in Independence Village, an altercation between two persons led to Shane Bennett being shot in the arm after pulling a pellet gun on another man who pulled out a real gun and fired at him. The incident happened shortly before noon on Sunday when Bennett and an unnamed individual got […]
