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Belize Tax Service’s Reynaldo Verde jailed in the US

HeadlineBelize Tax Service’s Reynaldo Verde jailed in the US

FBI agent details Verde’s extortion scheme; he only collected $1,000 out of a $350,000 extortion demand

BELIZE CITY, Thurs. Sept. 26, 2019– Reynaldo Verde, the Deputy Director of the newly-created Belize Tax Service (BTS), has been sitting in a US prison, instead of behind his desk at his office in Belize. Verde was the subject of a United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) sting operation that landed him in the arms of US law enforcement on Saturday, September 7, as he was heading back to Belize from an official trip to Brussels.

Verde was nabbed at Dulles International Airport in Washington and was held for transportation to the United States District Court for the Southern District Court of Florida, where his “Interference with commerce by means of extortion and attempted extortion” was allegedly committed.

The sordid details of Verde’s offense against the US are contained in an 11-page FBI Special Agent affidavit, captioned: “Criminal Cover Sheet.”

 The FBI Special Agent affidavit is in support of an application for a criminal complaint, and the agent explained that Chris Williams is a US citizen who is the CEO of Legacy Global Development (LGD), a real estate company headquartered in San Diego, California.

“In October 2016, Williams’ company bought a resort in Northern Belize, Orchid Bay Belize, for US $11.25 million, and that Williams has flown from the US to Belize through airports in the Southern District of Florida,” the FBI affidavit said.

The affidavit said that in early 2017, Williams was contacted through an intermediary of Verde because (Verde) wanted to arrange a clandestine meeting with him to see if he could help Williams deal with delinquent GST (General Sales Tax).

When Verde met with Williams on January 19, 2017, at the Radisson Fort George Hotel, Williams, on his own, covertly recorded their conversation.

At that meeting at Fort George, Verde expressed to Williams that Orchid Bay owed 1 million in GST, and that he (Williams) should set up another company.

When Williams asked Verde about the back taxes and penalties, Verde responded, “I am in charge.”

The FBI agent affidavit said, however, that Williams was not interested in paying bribe money to Verde, and had started to report their conversation to law enforcement.

The FBI agent explained that Williams had also recorded a series of WhatsApp calls that Verde made to him, and had begun a series of efforts to contact US law enforcement officials, especially when on January 27, 2017, Verde had inflated the amount of taxes Orchid Bay owed to $8,000,000.

Verde had also demanded that Williams pay him $4,000,000.

Williams received an electronic mail message from an LGD employee which informed him that “the GST supervisor had pulled me into the office again and asked me when you [Williams] will be back in Belize, as you need to contact him.”

In late 2017, the FBI field office in Miami decided to investigate Williams’ report concerning Verde.

On November 13, 2017, while he was in the Southern District of Florida, Williams made a recorded phone call to Verde in the presence of FBI agents.

At 10:33 a.m., when a Whatsapp call was made to Verde, he did not answer the call, but answered a regular call a minute later. This call, which lasted 8 minutes, was recorded. During that call Williams reminded Verde that “you had previously offered to help this go away,” to which Verde responded, “yeah, we can discuss.”

On December 17, 2017, Williams contacted an FBI special agent to inform him that he had just spoken to Verde and he had agreed to a meeting in Mexico; however, Verde wanted Williams to pay his fare to Mexico. So a meeting was arranged for January 6, in Cancun, Mexico.

The planned meeting in Mexico did not materialize, however, because Verde wanted Williams to foot the travel bill.

On August 24, 2019, two FBI agents went to Orchid Bay, in Corozal District, and met with Williams. The agents provided Williams with three recording devices to wear during an upcoming meeting with Verde.

Verde arrived at Orchid Bay in the early afternoon and walked into the bar/restaurant, where the two FBI agents were having lunch around a table. The FBI agents witnessed when Verde walked in and was wearing what appeared to be a handgun on the right side of his waist, barely covered by a tight shirt. Williams and Verde sat down and the agents met with Williams after the meeting.

In the recorded conversation, Williams and Verde discussed the tax bill of approximately 6 million dollars. Verde explained that Williams needed to pay 25 percent of the bill and the remainder over a 24-month period. Verde explained that the Government of Belize would start freezing assets if this was not resolved.

Both Williams and Verde agreed to a payment of $350,000, as had been communicated to Williams by Verde’s intermediary.

Williams and Verde then discussed the method of payment, and Williams told him that it would be a problem to wire that amount of money. Verde said it would have to be cash. Verde suggested to Williams that he open a Belize Bank account, but Williams suggested that they meet in Mexico, the US, or Panama. Verde said that he would not meet in any of those locations.

Verde and Williams then discussed payment by means of transfer of land, but Verde told Williams that he would have to look into that.

Verde asked Williams if he had an initial deposit for that day. Williams stated that he had one thousand dollars in cash. Verde responded that that was a very small amount of money. Williams then said that he paid Verde one thousand dollars in cash.

Williams explained that Verde’s use of his official position to extort bribes delayed his ability to develop Orchid Bay Belize. Because he could not show that his GST was paid, he could not get loans to further develop Orchid Bay Resorts, the FBI affidavit ended saying.

Information to our newspaper is that Reynaldo Verde recently got married at the end of August. He is the father of two children with his present wife, and has two other children from a previous marriage. His first wife is deceased.

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