7 News Belize

Thieves Clean Out the Courts Warehouse
posted (January 27, 2009)

It seems as if burglars had time on their hands when they broke into the warehouse of Unicomer Belize Limited formerly known as Courts Belize Limited at miles two and a half on the Northern Highway. A surveillance camera revealed that the suspects gained access through the rear of the compound undetected by the two security guards hired who were stationed at the front of the building.

Today Belize City Police continue to question a total of four security guards because it is believed that they may able to assist in determine how two individuals had several hours to remove over fifty thousand dollars worth of electronic items without raising an alarm. The video cameras reveal that the break in occurred sometime after six Sunday morning but it was not until eight the following Monday that the company’s logistics and distribution manager became aware that there had been a burglary.

A check of the premises revealed that the men got into the warehouse by cutting through a fibreglass roof in the rear portion of the building. Today 7NEWS spoke with the company’s operations manager Joel Salazar who believes the crime may have been committed by someone who is familiar with the building’s layout.

Joel Salazar, Operations Manager
“We called the police of course and reviewed our cameras. We were able to establish that the break-in occurred on Sunday morning at about six forty five; between 6:45 and 9 so there were about three hours within which the incident took place.”

Jacqueline Godwin,
What did the cameras reveal?

Joel Salazar,
“From what we can tell from our outside cameras, just established the time and more or less one or two persons that were involved.”

Jacqueline Godwin,
Did the cameras pick up any vehicles coming onto the compound?

Joel Salazar,
“No we looked at our cameras and from what we can tell our security that we have there, the security company that we have there, they stayed in the front most of the time so no cars were seen visible coming in or out of that which leads us to believe that they escaped, and we know that caus we can see the footsteps leading from the back of building through the swamp and into the river.”

Jacqueline Godwin,
When these two suspects arrived, the two individuals the camera picked up, where were the security guards?

Joel Salazar,
“They were in front.”

Jacqueline Godwin,
So they were not able to see these two individuals?

Joel Salazar,
“It is a very large facility, you will see when you go up there. So it is a long distance from the front to the back so they would normally have to do a perimeter search around the building.”

Jacqueline Godwin,
So the cameras picked up the men arriving from the rear of the building and the security guards were at the front. It appears though that they had quite some time on their hands to take away the number of items that were stolen? At no time the security guards heard any noise, commotion, nothing?

Joel Salazar,
“Unfortunately no.”

Jacqueline Godwin,
Do you find this strange?

Joel Salazar,
“I wouldn’t want to speculate on that right now. We will leave it up to the investigators to come up with that. We have a number of high valued items, digital cameras, game consoles, car stereos, notebook computers and 32 inch flat screen TVs.”

Jacqueline Godwin,
Have you gotten an idea of the guys who broke into this building knew exactly where these items were? I don’t know how you have them stocked but they were a variety of items so did they just go at random stealing stuff or?

Joel Salazar,
“No unfortunately the way how the crime was carried out, the persons had to be very familiar with inside of our warehouse which leads us to believe that it could have been an inside job.”

7News understands that the police investigation led them to a house on the city’s south side but none of the stolen items were found.

Those items again include 4 Sony portable DVD players, 20 Sony brand cameras, 14 Polaroid digital cameras, 11 Motorola cell phones, 21 Samsung slim cell phones, 1 Jensen multimedia receiver, 1 Nokia cell phone, 3 Nintendo games, 2 Nintendo wireless controls, 4 Playstation three controls, 2 Playstation three games, 4 Pioneer brand car stereos, 5 Sony brand extreme amplifiers, 2 Sony brand car stereos, 9 Dell notebook laptop computers, 5 HP notebook laptop computers, 1 Dell flat screen monitor with CPU, and 4 thirty two inch Sharp flat screen monitor Televisions. If you can assist Unicomer Belize Limited and the police to recover any of the stolen items please call crime stoppers or the nearest police station.

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