40 year-old Cuban twin brothers, Joel Jaimes Gonzalez and Joany Jaimes Gonzalez, and 53 year-old Nigerian Patrick Joshua Aibaengbee, landed on the Avianca flight from El Salvador yesterday. The brothers tried to get into country with fake passports, and fake Belizean visas.

In the case of Joel and Joany Gonzalez, the walked up to the arrival section and presented 2 separate Guatemalan passports. Joel handed over a passport which said that his name was Nestor Bayona Carreno, his brother Joany, handed over a passport which said that his name was Felipe Bayona Carreno. If the fake documents passed inspections, the 2 brothers would have been able to enter the country legally because Guatemalan citizens do not require a Belizean visa to travel here. Luckily, the immigration officials processing the documents became concerned and made closer checks. On verification, they found out that the Guatemalan passports were forged with the photographs of the brothers superimposed into them to look official, in an attempt to allow these impostors to get through immigration.

When the officers took them aside, questioned them, and searched their belongings, they discovered that they had their real Cuban passports, which revealed their identities to be Joel and Joany Gonzalez. The men admitted under interrogation that the documents were forged, and that's when they were charged with the offense of using a passport they are not entitled to.

Nigerian Patrick Joshua presented his Nigerian passport, and it was flagged because his visa was the very old and outdated version. We say old because it's not the current sticker type; it's the version of the Belize visa which used to be a stamp placed inside passports. That's a problem for the Immigration officers because the date on the document says that it was issued on February 20, of this year, which couldn't have happened since the new sticker type visas came into effect a long time ago. The immigration officials therefore charged him with possession of a fraudulent document for it.

All 3 men were arraigned before Magistrate Leslie Hamilton, where the Cuban brother's pleaded guilty to the charge and told the court, "Everything was done voluntarily, we acted on our own. We regret and we do apologize." For the guilty plea, both men were fined $1,000, which they had to pay forthwith.

Nigerian Patrick Joshua took a more defiant approach and pleaded not guilty to the charge, challenging the Immigration Department to prove that his visa was fraudulent. Because he did that, however, he became ineligible for bail due to being a flight risk, and he was remanded to prison until his next court date, which is set for April 29.