Right now, the Customs Department is continuing its countrywide search for uncustomed liquor – and this evening that has them at 88 shopping Center on Central American Boulevard. The store was closed this evening as the officers conducted searches inside. The shutter was opened just a few minutes ago and the search turned up a relatively small quantity of uncustomed liquor, and cigarettes.
And while that was small, as you saw yesterday at Vin Hong, Customs confiscated a major amount of imported liquor, reportedly more than 800 cases!. Today 7news confirmed that in just a one-day operation on San Pedro and in Belize city yesterday, they confiscated over two thousand cases of un-customed liquor.
As we told you last night, all liquor that is legitimately processed by customs carries the "Belize Market" sticker on each bottle. But, customs searches have turned up thousands of bottles of liquor with a bogus, look-alike sticker. However, when checked under special light for security features, the sticker fails the test.
Mike Singh, the CEO in the Ministry of Trade, which oversees the stickers, told us today that the Supplies Control office has confirmed that the stickers are passable fakes. He says that they are concerned at the extent of it and the loss to government in revenue. Singh also mentioned that the fines accruing to those in possession of mass quantities of such liquor could be enormous, because it is assessed at three times the value of the product.
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