BELIZE CITY, Tues. Apr. 30, 2019– Senator Aldo Salazar, who represents the ruling United Democratic Party (UDP) administration, traveled to Taiwan as part of an official delegation that was led by President of the Senate, Hon. Lee Mark Chan. In Taiwan, the three-member delegation, which also included Mike Singh, Chief Technology Officer for the Belize government, met with Taiwan’s president, Tsai Ing-wen.

On the way back to Belize, traveling through Houston, Texas, over the weekend, however, the delegation experienced a substantial delay when agents of the United States Federal Trade Commission (FTC) took Senator Salazar into a room and questioned him at length. The Senator reportedly spent almost three hours being interrogated by the FTC agents, before he was released and allowed to proceed home.

According to a report from News5, Salazar’s interception/detention had to do with the scam known as Sanctuary Bay. This is the largest real estate scam that the FTC has uncovered, and was masterminded by Andres Pukke, who is an FTC repeat offender.

As a result of the Sanctuary Bay scam, US investors lost millions of dollars which went into financing Pukke’s private lifestyle, instead of building the retirement homes for which the investors had put up their monies.

News5 also reported that Senator Salazar is the attorney for Atlantic Bank International, a bank that the US FTC had accused of facilitating the Sanctuary Bay scam, and which was subsequently closed down by the Belize Central Bank.

Senator Salazar is the chairman of the Senate Select Committee which investigated the Auditor General’s report for the years 2011-2013. The Senate has not yet produced the report, almost one and a half years since the Senate inquiry ended.

We have attempted to speak to Senator Salazar but were unable to reach him by phone.