At the last full meeting of the Senate, Opposition Senator Lisa Shoman made clear her intent to bring a motion requesting a Senate Inquiry into the Immigration scandal. Since then a notice of motion was drafted and discussed with social partners before it was handed in to the Clerk of the National Assembly on Monday. […]
And tonight’s question is: Should there be an investigation into the finances of Minister of State Edmund Castro? Send your comments and responses using your SMART phones to 8686 or post your vote on our e-poll at channel5belize.com. You can also send an email with your comments to questions@channel5belize.com.
Tonight, there is chilling and telling video of the shake down of a young man by the police. The incident happened on the night of September eighth when Tyrell Hyde was parked in his car near the Buttonwood Bay Park along with three other friends. The group was approached by police officers who searched them […]
Thirty-six year old Jaziba Nasser is eight months pregnant, but she finds herself behind bars since last Thursday. Nasser is remanded along with her husband, businessman Nazim Nasser and their two children Jamil and Hilal, following the discovery of six corroded bullets inside their residence in San Pedro Town. The family was jointly charged for […]
On Saturday, Minister of State Edmund Castro entered the country. He was in Miami on government business when he became the subject of serious allegations of corruption. Castro is accused of accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars to facilitate and fast-track the processing of Belizean visas for Chinese nationals. The informant who came forward last […]
Castro dodged the media Saturday, but he won’t be able to dodge the very serious allegation made against him. The informant, who Castro has identified as Alvarine Burgess, has now filed an affidavit at the Ombudsman’s office in Belize City. In the affidavit, Burgess discloses specifics of her meetings with Castro, during which she claims […]
Castro’s only comments came via press release today following an emergency U.D.P. meeting. According to the release, Castro makes clear that the allegation was a lie. He was never engaged in any visa ring, and never collected a penny from the woman now turned self-proclaimed whistle-blower. When contacted early last week Thursday, Castro said, “I […]
Still on the immigration matters….Following up on notice from the floor of the Senate on October seventeenth, the Opposition Senator, Liza Shoman will be moving a motion at the next sitting of the senate calling for the appointment of a Special Select Committee of the Senate. At the time, irregularities were disclosed in the issuance […]
While Castro bunkers down in the face of very compelling, firsthand information against him, there are other visa irregularities coming to light. Tonight, twenty-two Indian nationals are incarcerated after they were rounded up by immigration authorities on suspicious of visa fraud. Five of those persons were found without any documents, while sixteen were found in […]
On Saturday, tensions escalated on Cemetery Lane in Belize City because of a dispute over one tiny parcel of land. On one side of the dispute is prominent attorney Rodwell Williams. On the other is the Young family, who has lived on the plot of land for more than a century, since Belize was British […]
As we mentioned earlier in the newscast, on Saturday Police gave an undertaking that they would not act until a meeting with Rodwell Williams and the Young family is convened. The bone of contention is a small piece of land on the family property on Cemetery Lane. Williams claims to own the property, and he […]
Prime Minister Dean Barrow finds himself in a conundrum tonight having returned to the country to face another major accusation of corruption in his administration. We will have what happened on his return coming up. But first, the claims against Minister of State Edmund Castro are now official and have been taken up to another […]
Prime Minister Dean Barrow has been out of the country for more than a week – combining official and medical business. One day before he left the country, the PM reported that new immigration evidence had been discovered which damned Elvin Penner. Penner was invited to resign, but hadn’t. So that situation was very much […]
A group of U.D.P. supporters turned up to welcome PM Barrow home. They weren’t allowed past the barrier into the main airport area, but Minister of State Mark King was. He’s had his own problems with Barrow, and in fact was suspended for three months earlier this year. It’s no secret that King is not […]
Edmund “Clear the Land” Castro now shares the corruption spotlight with Elvin Penner, his comrade in the immigration shenanigans. Penner came back into the country from Guatemala on Sunday. He has been asked to resign from the U.D.P., but all indications are that he has not made up his mind. Today, News Five contacted Penner, […]
A delivery truck driver was brutally murdered in broad daylight during the lunch hour. The Yo Creek resident, George Blanco, was employed by John Penner Meats; his life was cut short today when he was returning to the village after making deliveries in Belize City. Penner and his two sons were in the vehicle when […]
Plans to convene a general congress by the membership of the embattled Christian Workers Union remain in motion, despite strong dissuasion from the organization’s executive committee. On Thursday, President Antonio Gonzalez and General Secretary James McFoy went on record to discourage attendance of what they have described as an unauthorized meeting. That congress, as agreed […]
Union activist, Dale Trujeque, who has been closely advising Pitter and Rivers in their effort to bring about change, told the media this afternoon that despite the mixed messages being sent to the membership of the CWU, he is prepared to legally defend the results of Saturday’s elections. Dale Trujeque, Union Activist “If we […]
On Wednesday’s newscast, we showed you a glimpse into the institutionalized visa hustling scheme. The man allegedly at the center of it is Minister of State Edmund Castro. He has been directly accused as the man who allegedly procured visas for Chinese nationals at two thousand dollars a head. It’s a very lucrative business. Our […]
Our source got hold of that passport and it shows that the visa hustle is still going on….at least as recently as August 2013. Tonight, we have part two of our continuing coverage of the breaking scandal. We start with the Chinese connection – that is, the man who delivered the application forms, Chinese passports […]
We also revisit the lucrative scheme which allegedly netted two thousand dollars per visa. According to our source, they did this between October 2012 and April 2013 – a total of two hundred plus visas for Chinese nationals at two thousand dollars a head – which means that in those six months a four hundred […]
Our confidential informant says she no longer continued in the visa scheme in April of this year. But as the passport shows, the hustle continued. Our C.I. maintains that she did nothing wrong, and only received a little money for her facilitation of the process and her contacts, in this case with Minister Edmund Castro. […]
Minister of National Security, John Saldivar, has also responded to questions regarding his possible involvement in the sale of visas, in light of recent reports that there is an ongoing quota system being implemented among senior government officials. According to Saldivar, allegations against Minister of State Edmund Castro, who has been named in the sale […]
A pair of Guatemalan nationals, identified as Jonathan Gregorio Adolfo Sandoval and Ruben Delilo Carrias Veliz, was nabbed at the western border this evening following a search of a vehicle in which they were both traveling. At around four-thirty, Benque police, along with other law enforcement agencies, conducted an operation at the border during which […]
Cuban nationals twenty-nine-year-old Miguel Rodriguez and twenty-nine-year-old Henry Reyes, arrested by San Ignacio police on Tuesday, have been transferred to Benque Viejo del Carmen where they were arraigned for illegal entry into Belize. Their handlers, Mexican couple Vladimir Gonzalez and his wife Delia Iglesias, have been charged for aiding and abetting their unlawful entry. While […]
