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The police crime ring – it’s dominated the national discourse for the past week – and in that time, a healthy skepticism has developed. That is fuelled in no small part by the embarrassing flip flop..flip between the Commissioner of Police and the police public relations department on whether the crime ring masterminded the Scotia Bank Spanish Lookout armed robbery. It is no small matter; that is the deadliest and most lucrative bank robbery in Belize’s history – so the question of whether the police crime ring was involved is a matter of great moment. But right now, that is still a known-unknown. Police have said they are still investigating to see if Police Constable Germaine Mangar is involved.

What we know at this time though is that Mangar has been charged for conspiracy to commit robbery and attempted robbery. He has been charged along with Germaine Palacio who told police Mangar was the one setting him up to rob Chon Saan Restaurant last Wednesday night. That is now being called an attempted robbery – even though Palacio was intercepted far from the crime scene in a car with a weapon. When police took him in, he named Mangar, who he lured to the Chon Saan area as part of the sting operation.

But what about the attempted robbery? Police have not sent out an official report on it – and there was no detailed discussion of it as last week’s press conference. The police report usually provides the details of the report made to police and it is drawn from the internal police document, known as a situation report.

In the absence of an official report, 7News has obtained that internal situation report and it is quite telling. It says that Lee Mark Chang reported that at 6:00pm on Wednesday, he was at his business place in Belmopan when he received a call from one of his employees who informed him that two young men of Creole descent visited Chon Saan Palace on Kelly Street and questioned the employee as to the operation of the business. That’s quite remarkable in itself, but the report goes on to detail that – get this – they said they would return that same night to rob the establishment. You heard right, they allegedly told the restaurant employees they would be back to rob the place!

The police report goes unto say that, “as a result, a police sting operation was carried out that same night which led to the detention of Jermaine Palacio and Jermaine Mangar.”