Belize City Business Raid Yields Guns, Drugs, and Fraudulent Immigration Documents

Businessman Joshua Moses Ashburn is the Belize City resident whose business was raided on Monday evening on Western Avenue near its intersection with Mahogany Street. Ashburn appeared in court today along with one Mario Fernandez and Keenan Anthony and were all remanded to the Belize Central Prison until January 20, 2025.  The men are facing four criminal offenses, namely, one count of kept prohibited firearm and one count of kept prohibited ammunitions and two counts of possession of a controlled drug with intent to supply.  The men were arrested following a raid of the business on Monday evening that yielded an estimated twenty pounds of marijuana; on Glock 22 pistol along with two magazines; 11 rounds of pointy-forty caliber rounds of ammunition and 13 Smith and Wesson rounds of point-forty ammunition.  The charges surrounding drugs, guns and ammunition is only one part of criminal charges these men are facing.  Love News confirmed that aside from all this, the raid also yielded an immigration stamps, fraudulent passports, visas and permanent resident’s documents.  The immigration aspect of the investigation is in the infancy stage and so the men are yet to be charged for these offences.  We understand that the Ministry of Immigration is investigating to see if there was collusion from the inside.