BELIZE CITY, Fri. July 5, 2019– The Belize Immigration Department cannot explain how a Belize passport recently ended up in the hands of an unsavory individual, a member of the Sinaloa drug cartel in Mexico. That is all the more reason why the Senate Inquiry Report on the Auditor General’s findings on the irregularities at the Immigration and Nationality Department is of the highest importance.

Chairman of the Senate Special Select Committee, Senator Aldo Salazar, had promised a few weeks ago that by the halfway point of this year, the report would have been completed. Perhaps this Belize passport was issued during that period under scrutiny.

Yesterday, Thursday, there was a murder in Chetumal, Mexico, and the murdered man, whose real name is Juan Ulises Galvan Carmona, just so happened to be a member of the Sinaloa drug cartel, and he was also known by the alias “El Buda.”

Reports out of Mexico say that El Buda recently relocated to Chetumal, where he had established a money-laundering business.

El Buda, who is a Mexican national, was found carrying multiple passports, including Mexican, Guatemalan and Belizean passports.

El Buda apparently had ties in Belize, and his murder is reportedly drug-related.

Media reports out of Mexico have indicated that El Buda was a well-known drug runner who has strong connections to the Sinaloa drug cartel, and in 2012, he was arrested along with Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, the reputed head of the cartel who was extradited to the United States, where he was tried and convicted on a string of indictments, including drug trafficking, murder and money laundering.

El Buda was killed execution-style with two gunshots to the head in the mini supermarket, El Caracol, in front of the Fiesta Hotel Inn.