A salesman for James Brodie and Company was robbed on Monday morning. Between 9:30 and 10:00, Leslie Pratt parked his car at the corner of East Collet Canal and Vernon Street and entered Century Company limited to collect cash and cheques worth three thousand seven hundred dollars. As he left the building and returned to […]
Murders are no longer a rarity in Belize, but the nation’s rural communities have been largely spared from the growing carnage of the last decade. Over the weekend a man was killed in what should have been plain view… but as of this evening, nobody seems to be talking. Ann-Marie Williams, Reporting The laid back […]
What would have been a routine lover’s quarrel, instead ended in violence on Saturday night. David Ortega, a security guard for Publics Supermarket, left work around nine-thirty and reached his home on Logwood Street fifteen minutes later. But that was fifteen minutes too late for his common law wife Maria Virginia Cawich, who believed he […]
Belizean police officer Ebelio Itza Jr. is back home tonight, perhaps a bit more educated in what it feels like to lie on the receiving end of what appears to be some official brutality. Reports to News 5 indicate that Wednesday evening, Itza, off duty and out of uniform, became drunk at a bar in […]
Eight young men from San Pedro, Ambergris Caye, spent the weekend in the island’s jail and today were transported to Magistrate’s Court in Belize City where they were charged with dangerous harm. The charges arise out of an incident that occurred on Saturday around 4:00 in the morning on the town’s main street, Barrier Reef […]
Leon Anthony Walford, the seventeen-year-old man at the centre of last Thursday’s drama in Sandhill, was formally arraigned today in Magistrate’s Court. Walford was charged with attempted murder, dangerous harm, use of deadly means of harm, two counts of wounding, aggravated assault and common assault. It is alleged that in the wee hours of Thursday […]
The hunt has ended for the man who stabbed a woman in Sandhill and then abducted a boy at knifepoint to effect his escape. Details are sketchy, but seventeen year old Leon Anthony Walford was captured by police around 4:30 this afternoon at the bus station in Belmopan. He was on the loose since early […]
It didn’t have the drama of the incident in Sandhill, but police report that on Thursday night three brothers: Santos, Manuel and Eldermiro Oliver became embroiled in an argument that turned violent. When it was all over Santos was suffering from a machete wound to the head. Police are now looking for Manuel.
Meanwhile, in Belmopan, a security guard claims that he was overpowered by robbers who barged into his house and stole his gun. Twenty-eight year old Jose Rash of the San Martin area of the nation’s capital, told police that around ten-thirty Thursday night three masked men kicked down his door, put a gun to his […]
Thankfully, we do not have to report a case of murder tonight, but the crime we are recounting comes pretty close. Police say that around four this morning in Sandhill a man identified as seventeen year old Leon Walford entered the tent of two women who were sleeping in a tent on a church retreat […]
It seems as though holiday weekends have become synonymous with big money bank jobs. Last month two hundred and seventy thousand dollars was heisted from the Belize Bank in San Ignacio. This time eight thousand U.S. dollars were stolen from St. John’s Credit Union on Basra Street in Belize City. Reports are that sometime between […]
A hit and run on Western Highway has resulted in the death of a pedestrian. Around midnight on Good Friday night, a motorist passing by mile fifty-two picked up an injured man who had apparently had his foot severed after being hit by a vehicle. The victim was taken to Belmopan Hospital, where he lived […]
Tourists were the victims of crime in two separate incidents over the long weekend. On Saturday a British visitor was robbed at gunpoint as he conversed with the daughter of the manager of the guesthouse where he was staying. Paul U-Ming told police that around 5:00 p.m. the single assailant took his waist bag containing […]
In news just in another arrest has been made in the burglary of the Belize Bank in San Ignacio. Twenty-three year old Louis Leslie Castellanos of Santa Elena was arrested and charged today with burglary and conspiracy to commit burglary. Thirty-two year old Javier Ramirez of Orange Walk was charged two weeks ago for the […]
It wasn’t widely known outside of law enforcement circles, but over the last week the police and B.D.F. received some high powered help from our big uncle to the north. Today authorities held a briefing for the press and while the mission didn’t make any major busts, the joint effort is said to bode well […]
The stoning of pint bottles is a popular pastime for angry drunks…and while the missile usually fails to find its mark, one thrown on Friday has resulted in a man’s death. Forty year old Michael Muñoz returned to his home in Guinea Grass Village with a cut wound on the back of his head and […]
A Chinese shopkeeper being shot at in a robbery attempt is no longer major news, but on Monday the gun was in the other hand and the merchant who did the shooting has been arrested. Police say thirty-five year old Renel Sanker of Mahogany Street in Belize City went to buy an ideal at Bing […]
The Ministry of National Security has released its crime figures for March, reporting that major crime has declined seventeen percent over the same period last year. The categories of robbery, rape, burglary and theft all dropped significantly, while murder, which rose from five in March of 2000 to six in 2001 is the only major […]
It is not a narcotic of choice for Belizean addicts, but that didn’t stop drug runners from using Belize as a transshipment point for a small fortune in heroin. Police managed to nip this deal in the bud, however, as two Hondurans, one Colombian and one Nicaraguan were busted with over six pounds of the […]
Police report a breakthrough in last month’s heist of the Belize Bank in San Ignacio. Over the weekend thirty-two year old Javier Ramirez of Orange Walk was arrested and charged with burglary and conspiracy to commit burglary in connection with the break in which occurred sometime over the March ninth holiday weekend. At that time […]
Dangriga police, acting on a tip, have confiscated a big wad of counterfeit U.S. banknotes. The bust came in Seine Bight Village where eighteen-year-old Jovanie Miguel of Placencia was found holding a roll that would choke a whale shark. A total of five hundred and six bogus hundred dollar bills were confiscated from the young […]
The police even got some help in their crime fighting efforts from some public-spirited citizens. Around 8:00 Saturday night an Italian tourist was robbed at gunpoint while walking down North Front Street, but when the mugger took off with his victim’s knapsack he had some company. A number of passersby, along with tourism police, set […]
Police in Corozal have arrested the man they believe murdered an eighty-eight year old victim last month. Twenty-four year old Alejandro Ramirez has allegedly confessed to the brutal crime which occurred sometime prior to the morning of March sixth, when the body of Francisco Molina was discovered by employees of the Catholic mission who provided […]
Another death in Corozal, this one discovered Thursday evening, also has police working overtime. Officers were called to a farm about four miles from town around 5:30 where they found the body of fifty-six year old Zacaria Santos, a farmer of Salvadoran nationality. Santos’ body displayed bruises on the face, chest, abdomen and legs. A […]
The increasingly popular political practice of bribing voters with one half of a blue note has come under some serious criticism from the Central Bank. In a release today, the bank reminds the public that coins and bills that are mutilated, defaced or torn are not legal tender and will not be redeemed by authorities. […]
