by Charles Gladden

BELIZE CITY, Thurs. Aug. 24, 2023

Amandala has received reports that six of the seven Mexican nationals who were detained in Corozal last Sunday, August 20 – after they raised the suspicion of cops who believed that they were members of a cartel and had entered the country on a mission to execute a Corozal drug dealer – have been released and are scheduled to return to Mexico. Meanwhile, the one that remained in Belize has surrendered himself to the Mexican Embassy for his safety.

Earlier this week reports coming out of Chetmual, Mexico, “Informativo Chetumal,” an online news outlet in Chetumal, described the men as sicarios (cartel hitmen) belonging to the infamous Caborca Cartel in Mexico who had been sent to Belize to kill a high-level drug dealer in Corozal as part of a reported attempt to claim turf. Reports also indicated that the men were involved in several shootings in Chetumal, Mexico, that recently occurred.

According to the Commissioner of Police, Chester Williams, however, the men have insisted that they own a road construction company and they were carrying out road construction work as part of a UNDP project in conjunction with the Belize Traffic Department.

However, UNDP has denied being involved in any ongoing road construction project in the country at this time. It has issued a statement in which it makes it clear that, “There is no ongoing ‘road consultancy’ project in our Belize portfolio, and we have no connections to the accused individuals.”

One Belizean who is in the US seeking asylum – former police officer Cecil Martinez, who had been seen a few months ago in a viral video being beaten by men who were said to be cartel members who kidnapped him – has confirmed to Amandala that he immediately, after seeing photos of the detainees, recognized one of them as the man who had beaten him and held him for ransom in June of this year in Sonora, Mexico.

“He is the guy. He is the guy! If somebody hurt you, you will never forget that face, and worse, every day you live with uncertainty about whether they will hurt or kill you. These guys left me scarred for life and I will not let it go until they [are] brought to justice,” Martinez said. “To date, I still feel as if by me going public my life is still in danger, because these guys do not want to be publicly exposed for all the heinous crimes they’re doing to people,” he added.

Martinez, who was a police officer for over a decade before migrating to the US, claims that Commissioner of Police, Chester Williams isn’t moving forward with the matter due to the adversarial professional relationship that the two had. When Martinez was held for ransom, the ComPol had publicly said that the police would confirm if the ordeal was factual, but, according to Martinez, he never did.

“Throughout this whole ordeal, when we contacted the Belizean authorities upon my release, he went on the media and stated that he asked investigators if it was true that I was truly held for ransom, when we had all the Western Union receipts that my dad sent the money from Belize to Mexico, which can be tracked. Chester [Williams] in no way contacted my mom or my immediate family, and that’s because I have two brothers who are serving members in the Police Department, and he didn’t even make checks to say that a Belizean was held captive,” he said.

While Cecil Martinez is convinced that the man, whom he identified to the authorities, is the one who harmed him in June, a tightlipped Hon. Kareem Musa, Minister of Home Affairs, told local reporters that he could say very little about the matter while it is still being investigated. However, he said information suggested that the men could be immigrants looking for employment, not sicarios.

“What I can say is that so far, nothing has come back to indicate that they are in fact, cartel members,” he said. “… perhaps these men came into the country looking for work, and there may be others engaged illegally working on job sites, and so that is kind of where the investigation is currently going,” Musa added.

Commissioner Williams told a local television news reporter yesterday, “They are still in our custody, but for immigration reasons. We have still not received confirmation from the Mexican government as to the genuineness of their passports. We have received some information from Interpol that their names do not appear in the criminal database in Mexico, but we have also requested a research to be done in respect to their fingerprints and we are still awaiting that, so there are still certain things we’re waiting for … so we’re still looking to see exactly who these persons are. We’re not ruling out nothing as yet, but right now Immigration is looking at the immigration aspect of the whole process.”

Amandala reached out to Dr. Gilroy Middleton, CEO of the Ministry of Immigration concerning the immigration status of the Mexican nationals, as they have been handed over to them, but so far we have not received a response.

As to Cecil Martinez, he says he has informed members of the FBI about his situation and that they are looking into the matter as well.