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Twenty six thousand dollars, that is the amount of money a employee of the Ministry of National Security and businessman from the Belmopan area reportedly stole from the Government of Belize. Reports are that twenty three year old Giovanni Ochaeta, a clerk at the Ministry of National Security and twenty eight year old Carlos Chan a business man from the Cayo District committed the crime during a six month period.

And this is how sources tell 7News it was done. Sometime in December Geovanni Ochaeta reportedly got Carlos Chan to create false invoices for services provided and then Geovanni Ochaeta facilitated the payments for those phantom services. It was not until three weeks ago that officials in the Ministry of National Security finally caught up to what was happening and put their employee on immediate suspension.

On Tuesday twenty three year old Geovanni Ochaeta a resident of Roaring Creek Village and Carlos Chan a resident of the city of Belmopan were arrested and charged. Both young men have been jointly charged with eight counts of theft and eight counts of conspiracy to commit theft. Carlos Chan was additionally charged for eight counts of obtaining property by deception.

When Carlos Chan and Geovanni Ochaeta appeared in Belmopan Magistrate Court they were both offered bail of five thousand dollars each plus one surety each of the same amount. Ochaeta and Chan were able to meet bail and are scheduled to reappear in Belmopan’s Magistrate Court on July twenty eight.

And,earlier this week, we reported that a Triple J employee was able to catch a cop in an extortion scam – after the cop caught him handling stolen goods. Well, while the story’s legit, it turns out the man we named is not a Triple J employee, and we apologize for the mix up.