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Two years after the start of construction, the Belize City Center is about to be completed. The multipurpose facility is state-of-the-art and can accommodate up to four thousand spectators. It is designed by brothers Daniel and Carlo Arguelles of International Environments. But how much is being spent on the complex? I.E. representative Daniel says they […]
Written on July 20, 2017 | Posted in
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Comments Off on Belize City Center Near Completion
Before his investigation into Arthur Saldivar’s missing files expanded to look at their contents, former deputy of National Crimes Investigation Branch Julio Valdez was tasked with finding out how they were removed under the eyes of Immigration officials and who couriered them to Saldivar. The attorney wasn’t talking then, but simple observation found that there […]
Written on July 20, 2017 | Posted in
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Comments Off on Julio Valdez Tells Senate ‘Anybody’ Could Have Gotten Immigration Files
A few weeks ago, Immigration officer Ady Pacheco came to the Senate Special Select Committee and extensively detailed her work therein, including acting as a counter-clerk receiving applications for nationality, passports and visas, particularly from Ministers of Government or their hangers-on. As Retired Superintendent of Police Julio Valdez observed, the Department seemed nonchalant about happenings […]
Written on July 20, 2017 | Posted in
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Comments Off on Valdez Questioned Immigration About Ady Pacheco Counter Work
Persuaded by the arguments of then-People’s United Party leader Francis Fonseca, Chief Justice of Belize Kenneth Benjamin ordered Commissioner of Police Allen Whylie by a writ of mandamus to criminally investigate the Won Hong Kim passport scandal and the man at its center, former Minister of State Elvin Penner. His prior refusal to investigate, the […]
Written on July 20, 2017 | Posted in
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Comments Off on Mandamus Appeal On, But ComPol Says Kim was Investigated
The implication raised by ex-Superintendent Julio Valdez during his testimony on Wednesday was that someone above him suggested that he direct his energy to investigating strictly how Arthur Saldivar’s purloined files went missing from the Immigration Department and not what was in them – as Valdez put it, ignoring a murder at a burglary scene. […]
Will a twenty-two million dollar investment in the Tower Hill sugar mill proceed? American Sugar Refining/Belize Sugar Industries Limited and the Belize Sugar Cane Farmers Association are butting heads over some amendments to the current commercial agreement. B.S.I. wants to “amend the 2015 cane purchase agreement to remove the opt-out clause allowing either side to […]
Written on July 20, 2017 | Posted in
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Comments Off on B.S.I. Vs B.S.C.F.A. on Commercial Agreement
There was another big drug bust on Wednesday up north in Corozal. Thirty-four-year-old Altamira, Corozal resident Albert Humes and nineteen-year-old Belize City resident Shanice Humes have been arrested and charged for drug trafficking after they were caught with approximately seven pounds weed. The duo was caught around three p.m. in the vicinity of San Pedro […]
Written on July 20, 2017 | Posted in
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Comments Off on Corozal Family Charged in Weed Bust
Last month we told you about the proposed new route for the annual Carnival Road March in September. In some quarters, the proposed route was not well-received. There were issues of congestion and blockage of key traffic points and these were submitted to the National September Celebrations Commission. Today, members of the commission went to […]
Written on July 20, 2017 | Posted in
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Comments Off on Testing the Routes for Carnival in Belize City
A Florida national is headed to jail for using hidden Belize accounts to conspire to commit tax and bank fraud. Forty-eight-year-old Casey Padula of Port Charlotte, Florida, pleaded guilty in March and was sentenced this week to fifty-seven months imprisonment; three years of supervised release; a fine of one hundred thousand U.S. dollars and payment […]
Written on July 20, 2017 | Posted in
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Comments Off on American Jailed for Hiding Money in Belize
In a press release issued today, the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development says that scam artists are attempting to hustle money from the public under the pretense that homes have been approved for them in a housing project purportedly being executed by the Ministry in Belmopan. The matter was brought to the attention of […]
Written on July 20, 2017 | Posted in
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Comments Off on Housing Says No Projects Going On, Beware of Scammers
The UWI Arts Chorale, the premier choral ensemble of the University of the West Indies Saint Augustine Campus, and the UWI Arts Steel, the premier steel band ensemble, are on a concert tour called “Joyful Two” in Belize. It is a unique pairing of one of the world’s oldest types of ensembles, choir, with the […]
Organizations working with and on behalf of older persons are tackling what can be a very touchy subject for families: preparing for the end of life and final distribution of assets of the deceased among his surviving family. It’s no guarantee that if you weren’t close to Mom and Dad before they passed that they […]
Written on July 20, 2017 | Posted in
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Columbus Central University School of Medicine and the Ministry of Education have issued desultory responses to Citizens Organized for Liberty through Action’s public stunt in front of the Airport Road compound of the medical school. While the university has changed its name, it appears the same man, Doctor Malik Soudah, is in charge. He remains […]
Written on July 20, 2017 | Posted in
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Comments Off on CCU, MOE Dismiss COLA Plea on Medical Schools
World Zoonosis Day is commemorated on the sixth of July each year. Pet owners and farmers may not often think about the myriad of transferrable diseases between animals to humans; but, there have been major health scares locally and internationally with diseases like rabies, avian flu and even Ebola – all of which have animal […]
Written on July 20, 2017 | Posted in
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Comments Off on Healthy Living: Animals and Your Health
In 2014, Retired Superintendent of Police Julio Valdez, then-deputy of National Crimes Investigation Branch, wrote the Director of Public Prosecutions, Cheryl-Lynn Vidal, concerning his investigation into a trove of files removed from the Immigration Department in October of 2013, at the height of the Elvin Penner scandal. Those files were retrieved from attorney-at-law Arthur Saldivar […]
Written on July 19, 2017 | Posted in
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Comments Off on Ex-Investigator Julio Valdez Will Not Say Who Redirected His Investigation into Arthur Saldivar Files
The former senior cop stated that this branch of the investigation came about after his colleagues in Belize City spoke with Saldivar and retrieved the files. But when he attempted to access the original files at the Department, Valdez told the Committee, he was denied because an internal Immigration audit was underway and what became […]
Written on July 19, 2017 | Posted in
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Comments Off on Dueling Audits Stymied Further Investigation of Nationality Records
The only man above Valdez, indeed above all officers in the Police Department, is Commissioner Allen Whylie. Appointed in 2013, he was previously C.E.O. in the Ministry of National Security, and later Defence and Immigration when it was split between 2010 and 2012. Appearing this afternoon, he was confronted with Valdez’s testimony and staunchly maintained […]
The Commissioner blames ‘media spin’ for the misunderstanding and what he says is his subsequent decision to withdraw from any administrative handling of either the ‘missing files’ case or the Won Hong Kim case. But at the end of the day, he conceded that even he does not know how the former case turned out […]
Written on July 19, 2017 | Posted in
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Comments Off on Commissioner Had No Reason to Halt Investigation
But what was among that list of files handed over? Valdez read a fairly long list of nationality files and accompanying documents for some familiar names such as Yiu-Pang Chen and Quoc Vinh Truong who would show up in the Audit Report. What he noticed from his long experience as a cop, including stints commanding […]
Written on July 19, 2017 | Posted in
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Comments Off on Files Revealed Incomplete Addresses for Would-Be Belizeans
Speaking of background checks, were the Police Department or Ministry of Immigration consulted about the Cabinet’s decision to stop Special Branch police from carrying out the standard background checks on applicants for nationality? Commissioner of Police Allen Whylie indicated that he was not even sure if the check was a legal requirement or merely an […]
Written on July 19, 2017 | Posted in
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Comments Off on Background Checks: the Law or a Decoration?
We’ll come back to the senate hearings later, but a Belize City resident wanted for the stabbing death of Phillip Samuels has surrendered himself to police and is being held in custody pending an arraignment for murder. Cecil Gill, the prime suspect in the vicious attack of the thirty-one-year-old, turned himself in earlier today. On […]
Written on July 19, 2017 | Posted in
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Comments Off on Cecil Gill to Face Charges in Philip Samuels’ Murder
The Senate hearing continued into this afternoon where the Commissioner of Police Allen Whylie gave testimony. The other major investigation to be carried out by the Police Department was in relation to Won Hong Kim. Auditor General Dorothy Bradley is on record as asking for police investigation into the irregularities that caused the fugitive businessman […]
Written on July 19, 2017 | Posted in
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Comments Off on What’s in Police’s Won Hong Kim File? ComPol Doesn’t Know
Commissioner of Police Allen Whylie has been seen to be dragging his feet on investigating the allegations within the Auditor General’s Report. He recently stated that he would wait on instructions from the Director of Public Prosecutions and the conclusion of the Senate Inquiry, even though he conceded that he doesn’t have to. But according […]
Written on July 19, 2017 | Posted in
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Comments Off on ComPol: We Will Investigate Immigration Charges When Senate is Done
On Tuesday, police formally arrested and charged forty-eight-year-old Ernesto Cadle for manslaughter by negligence and causing the death by careless conduct of sixty-two-year-old Benedicto Mendez. The Belizean taxi driver of Cowpen Village was also slapped with charges of Driving an Unlicensed Motor Vehicle, Driving a Motor Vehicle with Alcohol Concentration above the Prescribed Limit and […]
Written on July 19, 2017 | Posted in
Auto Accidents,
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This afternoon, CIB personnel escorted two of their own to court to be arraigned for extortion. Corporal Marvin Salam, a police officer of Corozal, along with Corporal Anthony Blair of the Ladyville area, appeared before Magistrate Carlon Mendoza. The duo is stationed at the Racoon Street Police station in Belize City. Allegations are that on […]
Written on July 19, 2017 | Posted in
Crime,
Trials |
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