In October of last year, we told you about Indian nationals Keyur Barot, and Jitendra Kumar who were suspects in a criminal complaint, but also claimed to be human trafficking victims. Their former employer Jack Charles accused Barot of collecting over sixty thousand dollars for him on September 13th., and then absconding across the Guatemalan border with his vehicle and his money and Kumar in tow. The pair were caught 10 days later in Monterey, Mexico, allegedly with 13 thousand US dollars. The SUV was found abandoned in Guatemala. Mexican authorities handed the pair over to Belize police on October first, but they claimed Charles was trafficking them - and thus went into protective custody. That's where they've been for almost a year - that is until yesterday when they were allegedly repatriated to India - starting out on a Copa flight to Panama. It's a surprise move because they were the subject of a heavy criminal investigation, and no one had ever been charged for trafficking them - so that was not established.
But, it seems that someone made the decision that the criminal case could fall by the wayside, along with the suspicion of human trafficking - so they were returned to their home country.
We tried to get some understanding from the CEO of the Ministry of Human Development and the DPP - but neither responded to our request for comment.
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