Another money laundering case fell by the wayside today when two men and a woman charged with money laundering and failure to declare Sixty Thousand Two Hundred Forty U.S. dollars without reporting it, were acquitted of the charges today in the number Two Magistrate's court.
They are 37 year old Sydney Ellis, 31 year old Douglas Stringer, and 23 year old Julia McCord.
The allegation was that on April 2nd, 2010, they entered Belize through Mexico in a brown Expedition driven by Ellis.
When the police stopped the Expedition at a checkpoint in Sandhill, they searched it and found Fifty Seven Thousand Seven Hundred Ninety U.S. dollars in two rectangular boxes that were in a secret compartment under the vehicle.
The police also found Two Thousand Four Hundred Fifty U.S. dollars in a knapsack that belonged to McCord.
Senior Magistrate Sharon Fraser said the only evidence before the court with respect to money laundering was the testimony of police officer Lincoln Hemsley, the officer in charge of the Anti-Drug Unit, who said that Ellis confessed to him that he got the money from a Mexican national to give to a drug dealer in Belize. She said she found that portion of the evidence not to be true. Fraser also said she didn't know why Stringer was charged or even arrested.
With regard to the charge of failure to declare she said McCord could not have failed to declare because the evidence was that she entered Belize on March 2nd, not April 2nd. Magistrate Fraser also said that they were charged with failure to declare Sixty Thousand Two Hundred Forty U.S. dollars, but Miss McCord claimed that the money in the knapsack was hers. The three were represented by attorney, Dickie Bradley. The FIU, was represented by Counsel Mikhail Arguelles.
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