Last night we took you to Botes, Mexico – that border settlement
adjoining the village of Santa Cruz, Belize. As everyone in northern Belize
knows, Botes is a contraband hotspot. There’s no formal border crossing,
and contraband-ists go to Santa Cruz for the short hop across the Rio Hondo
to get to Botes. Now, the smugglers know there’s a risk involved, but
considering the money they save on cheap groceries, it’s worth it to them.
Or at least it was worth it until recently when the Customs launched a zero
tolerance campaign which has meant that every single scrap of Mexican contraband
is confiscated – form a box of matches right up to a box of lettuce. But
is it just mindless enforcement for the sake of it – or is there a method,
a redeeming social purpose? That’s what we tried to find out when we finished
our trek into contraband territory at the Customs office in Orange Walk.
Jules Vasquez Reporting,
We’ve followed their groceries from the point of purchase, to the point
of seizure and now, to the point of storage here at the Customs Warehouse in
Orange Walk. It’s the place where contraband goes for onward distribution
or destruction – and it’s loaded – with soft drinks, beer
and cigarettes which will be destroyed, even dynamite or “cuetes”
as they are called as well as flour and rice which have to be stored separately
so that rats don’t get it.
Jason Menzies is the Customs Officer in charge of the Orange Walk. He is the
target of many hostilities and considering the culture of contraband in Orange
Walk and what he’s trying to do to it, you can probably understand why.
Jason Menzies, Customs Department
“What we are targeting is the mindset that you can got there to shop. 
You are not allowed to go there to shop, it is an illegal crossing.”
And that is what’s stated here at the Customs Office on this sign which
boldly states that “The landings at Santa Cruz village and others along
the Hondo are not legal points of importation...” It’s just a sign
to us but Menzies says it is their mission statement.
Jason Menzies,
“We’re here to protect the business community here and we can’t
have people going to Santa Cruz and treating it like it is a grocery store.
You have legitimate business people importing their goods, paying their taxes,
trade licenses and whatever else is attached to legitimate business and then
they have to compete with people going to Santa Cruz, buying their goods, bringing
it across, it is unfair and it is an illegal crossing. So we have a zero tolerance
on shopping in Santa Cruz, you are not allowed to shop in Santa Cruz.”
And on the road, “zero” means taking away all the items from those
villagers who we met bargain shopping in Botes. He says it is a fight not against
these folks but against a culture and a mentality that is prevalent in the north.
Jason Menzies,
“Its not that we’re taking away $50 dollars worth of goods from
people. It’s that if we allow people to by fifty dollars worth of goods
today that number of people with that mentality increases and it might be one
family buying $50 of goods but when you take two three busloads of people buying
$50 worth of goods then it has an impact and we are here to prevent that as
much as we can.”
Jules Vasquez,
“The things that I saw people with people are not prohibited items, cereals,
milk, some chips, a lot of chips I saw. They could legitimately bring those
in through the border so why take it away from them here? It is not like they
are bringing in beer per se.”
Jason Menzies,
“The only deterrent that people are going to understand is that you
cannot cross there, you run the risk of losing your goods. If you want to cross, 
you cross at the Santa Elena Border or you cross at the Blue Creek Station where
you will play duty and you are allowed to cross.”
Jules Vasquez,
“A lot of those people feel that straight that all the goods being confiscated
ends up in your house, you are not buying groceries or it is for some girlfriend,
that is how they view it.”
Jason Menzies,
“Well we have records to show.”
They do indeed have copious records - this filing system which Menzies has
been keeping since August of 2009 tracks what happens to each quantity of goods
confiscated. This thick file is for January when they re-distributed close to
twenty thousand dollars worth of goods. It’s not exactly Robin Hood –
but it is sort of.
Jason Menzies,
“It presents a personal loss to the individuals, economically. It
also represents a loss to the business community in Orange Walk. So what we
decided to do is that we donate it where the business community is not able
to make donations because business is bad. We fill in that gap and we have all
the school feeding programs benefit from the goods that we take in on a daily
basis.”
The record shows that the goods go out to schools foster homes and social intervention
programmes where they are signed for. It’s accountability, and to hear
Menzies tell it on the enforcement side, it’s also paying off.
Jason Menzies,
“The traffic has fallen off quite a bit, the personal vehicle traffic
has fallen over substantially because people don’t want to be brought 
in and be charged the $2,000 fine. So that has fallen off. What we contend with
now is the bicycle traffic at night and it is more a business than personal
shopping.”
And from what we saw these bicycle people were in business – and Menzies
showed us pictures of very loaded bicycles they’ve intercepted at night
or in the morning before first light – some carrying as much as 150 pounds.
Those bicycles are piled up here in the customs warehouse – as are vehicles
that have been confiscated from repeat offenders. Everything is put into evidence
and Menzies says they have a 90% conviction rate mostly because the accused
usually pleads guilty. It’s a lot of enforcement work but Menzies says
he feels it’s coming back to the community.
Jules Vasquez,
“Out on that San Antonio Road, the village is extremely poor, people see
the Customs Department as abusive, people see the Customs Department as greedy,
people see the Customs Department as chancey.”
Jason Menzies,
“I don’t see it that way because what happens and the bright
side of it for us is that in servicing the schools’ feeding programs with
these same goods that we get, a lot of these children, these same individuals, 
their children go to these schools and if no one is aware the teachers are aware
and the students are aware and so where the schools have free feeding programs,
they know what we are doing and for us it balances out. So we have one set of
people saying we are greedy and chancey but we have one set of people saying
they fed us today.”
So maybe in the schools they are winning but on the road we guess it will be
sometime before the Customs Department has any friends. And speaking of the
road – we stayed on it with our contraband, getting the two bottles first
to Orange Walk and then through two more police checkpoints on the road. We
were never intercepted and while we got through with our contraband cargo –
we suspect a lot of it had to do with the fact that we’re media, and most
enforcement people know us and just gave us a bly. But for the anonymous, undocumented
smuggler – every day and night he or she takes risks to get contraband
across what for them are enemy lines.
And if you’re wondering, yes, those cigarettes were being smuggled
inside a gas tank –which had been cut out and specially adapted by smugglers.
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