7 News Belize

Another Hilux Stolen, Police Quickly Recover It
posted (October 23, 2014)
Another Government owned Toyota Hilux was stolen today in Belmopan. That would be the fifth since July - all government Hilux's stolen from various government departments. It's a staggering number and it would be a double embarrassment for police and the government tonight - but this time, the cops got back the truck and they did it in less than half an hour! It's a quite remarkable turn of events which was aided first by the fact that the vehicle was stolen from the Institute of Archaeology - and workers saw it when the car thief - a Hispanic man in dark sunglasses was driving off. They followed behind him and called police - who had mapped out a response plan and were ready to roll. The officer commanding Belmopan explained how they intercepted the pickup heading west:..

Supt. Howell Gillett - OC, Belmopan Police
"We had a plan in place and that plan was immediately effectuated. I can't go through in depth with the plan, but what I can tell you we had the services of Roaring Creek police which is a part of the Belmopan police; we had our CIB and other unites from Belmopan activated; we had Benque, San Ignacio and also we had the Spanish Lookout alert system in place. So we were able to track this vehicle or as a matter of fact trail this vehicle until it reached at George Ville in this same Cayo District where the vehicle was stopped at an emergency check point. The driven upon seeing the check point in place decided to turn back and in the process he absconded the vehicle, leaving the vehicle behind and he is still at large at this moment. We believe, I am no expert in the field, but we believe that sufficient DNA was left behind in the vehicle and as a matter of fact some of our partners, our stakeholders saw this person the driver and we know who we are looking for. He is known to us and we will moved on from there. We are very enthusiastic at the moment and I am sure that this case will help to solve many of the others."

Jules Vasquez
"Is this a stolen vehicle ring?"

Supt. Howell Gillett - OC, Belmopan Police
"I wouldn't want to label it as such. As I had mentioned I want to have those things in evidence before I could conclusively say so."

Jules Vasquez
"How significant is it that finally and intercept has been made and it shows that your police formation is not asleep at the wheel?"

Supt. Howell Gillett - OC, Belmopan Police
"That's a good question, I love that question. Behind the scenes we were doing many things and we learned from some of the experiences we had in the past stolen vehicles and I think that now we are mature enough to be able to come up with some theories and this great plan that assisted us so well today. I believe that we are accustomed to this type of thing. It was new to us first, but now we know how to deal with cases like these and we will continue to be evolving because the criminals they are always changing, so the plan that we have in place might not be effective for another stolen vehicle if God forbids that there is another."

Police are just starting their investigation, and while they aren't calling it a stolen vehicle ring at this time they are looking at two trends: that all the vehicles were Toyota Hilux pickups, and all were stolen from government offices during daylight hours. They are speaking to the dealer Belize Diesel - which has confirmed that it is assisting police. We'll have more on this story tomorrow.

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