Belize City Man Reports $13,150 Vehicle Deal Gone Wrong to Police

A Belize City man has reported a car dealer to police after paying thirteen thousand, one hundred and fifty dollars for a Nissan Pathfinder he says he never received.  Thirty-one-year-old Reegis Smith told investigators he agreed in March to buy the 2014 vehicle from Robert McClaren for thirteen thousand dollars. He says he paid ten thousand dollars in cash as a deposit, then transferred the remaining three thousand dollars and an additional one hundred and fifty dollars for a broker’s fee after McClaren told him in June that the vehicle had reached the northern border.  Smith says he was told he would get the Pathfinder on June twenty-ninth. When he called that day, he says McClaren told him he had no way to retrieve it from the border. Then, last week, Smith says he saw a 2014 Pathfinder advertised on a Facebook profile he believes belongs to McClaren. He told police the listing used the same photographs he had seen when arranging the purchase.  Smith made his report on Tuesday. Police are investigating his allegation of obtaining property by deception. The photographs alone do not establish that the vehicle in the listing is the one Smith paid for, and no charge has been reported.