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Police checkpoints were very active on the highways this weekend – and they made a major find on the Northern Highway on Saturday morning. They were conducting a checkpoint in Sandhill at the junction with the Old Northern Highway when 37 year old Sydney Ellis drove up in a Ford Expedition. He was accompanied by two Ladyville residents, 31 year old Belizean American Douglas Stringer, and 23 year old Julia McCord, along with two children, ages three and five. Their passports showed that they had entered through the northern border with Mexico on the same day.

Police searched the vehicle thoroughly and inside the glove compartment they found two aluminium boxes containing US$60,240 stuffed in two aluminium boxes. On Sunday, the three adults, Ellis, Stringer and McCord were handed over to the Financial Intelligence Unit and charged with “Failure to Declare Funds” and “Money Laundering”. They were arraigned in court today and bail was set at twenty thousand dollars each. But their attorney Dickie Bradley told Jim McFadzean there’s an easy answer which will be demonstrated in court:

Richard “Dickie” Bradley, Defense Attorney
”What has been brought to my attention, not only by these clients but in fact by Mr. William Jewett who was also charged for money laundering and having over $100,000 on his boat that because of the reputation that Belize has picked up, any body that goes on the internet, our country is becoming like Jamaica; we have this reputation as being a crime filled country and in fact it gets worse when we hear that senior police officers are also under heavy scrutiny for engaging in masterminding and orchestrating things, that the dreaded MS-13 are here, I hear from street sources that they are now involved in serious criminal activities. Because of that, businessmen and people coming home and those who want to do some kind of business are reluctant to stop at any port of entry and put on a form that I am declaring that I have $10,000, I am declaring I have over US$10,000, I am declaring I have $57,000. You are putting your life at risk literally. We need to review that matter to see how people can confidentiality inform the authorities without putting their lives at risk.

Yes, they said to me this morning when they were brought to court to be charged that they are prepared to say we did not declare it and they have a reason for that and they are prepared pay the fine for that but they are not money launderers. Money laundering connotes some very serious involvement in criminal activities. People are doing business everyday across the world. Some are criminals and some are not.”

According to court reports, both of the men met bail, but up to news time, the women, Julia McCord was unable to. The case is adjourned until the 21st. July.