Fraudulent Birth Certificates Scandal: Investigation Expands to Stolen Documents at Vital Statistics Unit

The investigation into the fraudulent birth certificates continues as Police are now probing into what the Prime Minister confirmed was stolen from the Vital Statistics Unit (VSU).  The story broke last Monday when Love News confirmed that two American Nationals, described as retired NFL players, obtained Belize passports using fraudulent birth certificates.  Our newsroom further understands that the scheme was flagged by someone at the Social Security office in San Pedro when the third American tried using the unofficial birth paper to obtain a SSB identification card.  Police Commissioner Chester Williams told the media earlier today that Police are looking into the matter and that despite the fact that all three American nationals have left the country, there are means to reach them.

Chester Williams, Commissioner of Police: “I know that we are looking at an issue where a person had presented a birth certificate which from all indications was not authentic. I just spoke to Mr.Romero this morning in respect to that matter and had given him some instructions in terms of what I would like to see get done with that issue. The major crime unit will be checking with the Ministry of Immigration today to see if we can get the documentations for those two persons who we were told had received passports based on these fraudulent birth certificates and once we get the report from Immigration we will launch an investigation into that matter. We’ll also check with vital stats from what we were made to understand is that the birth certificates were not issued by vital stats but perhaps somebody who works there but has some separate operations outside of the office. I know that they have discharged a number of persons from the vital statistical office and so we’ll see what information we can gather from them and then we’ll launch an investigation in respect of that. At the very least though if the passports were fraudulently obtained immigration is going to cancel them, revoke them and once they are revoked then we will put up a notice on Interpol’s database informing the world that these passports have been revoked so that if those persons were to attempt to travel with any of those passports they will be prevented from doing so because it will be in the system that those passports have been revoked.”

Love News has confirmed with the CEO for Immigration, Tanya Santos-Neal, that both passports have since been cancelled.