Last week we told you about the three Belizeans who were arrested at the Monseñor Romero Airport in el Salvador for not declaring tens of thousands of US dollars in cash.
Well, it turns out there are actually five with Belizean nationality. They are Marlon Alberto Valle, Jessy Grabiel Ojeda, Lilian Racquel Salazar, and Deymy Vanessa RodrÃguez, plus Rongcang Chen, who has Belizean and Chinese nationality.
So far we know that Ojeda was born in Cayo while Rodriguez and Valle are naturalized Belizeans originally from Honduras.
They were caught along with a Guatemalan and a Honduran.
Tonight, they have been sent to a Saldadorean jail. A headline article from "La Pagina" a newspaper in San Salvador, says that the Judge in the department of La Paz, has ordered "preventive detention" for all seven.
The paper reports that they were caught with a total of 66 thousand US dollars, 984 Belize dollars and a few Chinese yen - which they did not declare. They were flying from Belize to Salvador to Colombia.
Today's article says that El Salvadorian authorities believe that they are basically money mules, transporting cash for criminal organizations involved in drug trafficking. In Latin America their work is called "smurfing" - another word for money laundering - which, quote "consists of trying to legally introduce money from drug trafficking, extortion, kidnapping and other illicit activities." End quote.
The newspaper quotes a relative of Jessy Grabiel Ojeda - who is from Cayo and said that he has a small supermarket in Belize. They claim that he is an honest person and that the money he was carrying was to buy wine.
They have all been remanded because they are considered flight risks.
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