Special Investigative Team Formed to Tackle Belize’s Crime Surge

The Ministry of Home Affairs has built a special investigative team comprised of several units in the department.  According to Minister Kareem Musa, the team is being tasked with to look at the crime situation with fresh eyes and to add to the existing approach.  He was careful to note, however, that the department had been aggressively addressing crime long before the team was put together.  

Kareem Musa, Minister of Home Affairs: “It is important to highlight that even before the activation of this specialized investigative team, swift and efficient police work has led to the arrests for the murders of Elwyn “Bobo” Lewis, Dion Boden ,Griffith Cadle and also one of two suspects in the murder of Stanley Moor, he has been arrested and charged as well. And Madam Speaker, as we have seen from the verdicts coming out of the High Court as of recent, the investigative capacity of our officers, a strengthened forensics department, and a vastly improved prosecution branch has resulted in more and more convictions for capital offenses including the most recent convictions for Jorge Galindo in the murder of Nelson Flores, Earl Baptist for the murder of Leslie Gillett, and Jerome Crawford, utilizing DNA evidence for the murder of Owen Tucker. We have also seen in the early stages of the SOE significant success in removing from our streets high-powered weapons and other firearms, including two 40 caliber prohibited weapons, one 45 caliber weapon which was used to target the commissioners whom seven 9 millimeter pistols, two .38 revolvers, one .22 pistol, and one point .22 rifle along with 210 rounds of illegal ammunition. Madam Speaker, needless to say that while the confiscation of these 13 illegal and deadly weapons will no doubt save countless lives we recognize that there are many others still out there and the police intends to continue their full court operation press to locate and extract these deadly arms from our communities.”

The Coordinated Task Force comprise of Major Crimes, the Criminal Investigative Branch, Special Branch and the Gang Intelligence, Investigation and Interdiction Units.