7 News Belize

Digging Deeper Into Immigration Fraud
posted (May 16, 2014)
Last night, we told you about the major bust that the Immigration Department made. 11 persons with illegal documents allegedly arranged by 46 year old Marleny Castellanos, the suspected ring leader in a mass immigration scam. Today she was charged for arranging documents for eight of those persons.

As we told you on Wednesday, Immigration Officers went on a mass round up on the island of Caye Caulker and San Pedro for persons with illegal documents. They were transferred to Belmopan yesterday, and today 8 of them were taken to court and arraigned.

They are Cruz Reyes, Teresa Juarez, Abis Godoy, Floridalma Juarez, Francisco Reyes, Francisco Ruiz, Myrna Ortega, and Juan Castellanos, all of them Guatemalans. The first 7 were charged with 2 counts of using documents they were not entitled to use, while Juan Castellanos was charged with 3 counts. As the suspected chief arranger, Marleny Castellanos was charged with 16 counts of aiding persons to use documents they weren't entitled to use. The allegation against her is that she helped these 8 people obtain bogus birth and nationality certificates, which they've been using to pass themselves off as legitimate Belizeans.

The 8 Guatemalans all pleaded guilty, and they were fined $2,000, which they paid forthwith. Marleny Castellanos chose to force the Immigration Department to prove those 16 criminal charges against her, and she pleaded not guilty to all charges. That also made her ineligible for bail, and she was remanded to prison until August 14.

As to those 4 immigration offences that she pleaded guilty to on Wednesday, well, she recanted that. And she was allowed to do that because that's her right as an accused person. She was accused of obtaining an illegal birth certificate and having it forged in her name after stealing the identity of a dead Belizean woman. The prosecutor asserted that she then applied to the Immigration Department for a Nationality Certificate, and, later, a Belizean Passport, using that illegal birth certificate.

That's the same procedure which was done for her common-law husband, Alfredo Orlando Gonzalez Marcos. He also declared himself to be guilty of doing the same thing, but he went a step further and got a voter's ID with the stolen identity.

Following that sequence of events in court on Wednesday, as per procedure, Magistrate Cayetano asked her if she agreed with the facts. That's very important because when an accused person agrees with the facts, it confirms that they are accepting guilt for the charges. Marleny Castellanos and her husband did just that, and the guilty plea was accepted. Had Magistrate Cayetano passed sentence right there and then, their guilty plea would have been final.

But, sentencing wasn't immediately passed, and so today when that was supposed to be done, attorney Kevin Arthurs had since been retained to represent them, indicated that the couple changed their pleas to not guilty. This now forces the Immigration Department to take the matter through a full trial, to prove that they did indeed commit mass fraud to pass themselves off as Belizeans.

Interestingly enough, the identities of the dead Belizeans they allegedly stole are siblings. So, under the law, they are recognized as brother and sister, instead of husband and wife.

Home | Archives | Downloads/Podcasts | Advertise | Contact Us

7 News Belize