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We always hear loose allegations of low level corruption, but an unusual case came up today – it involves a cane farmer Pedro Guerra who is threatening to take out a lawsuit against a senior fisheries officer because he says that the officer made him costly promises which he couldn't keep. The promise was that the fisheries officer could get him a permit to expert frozen sea cucumber. Great profits were promised and the fisheries officer did all this for a fee, or, more specifically, a bribe of thirty five thousand dollars which Guerra says he paid him in January of 2014.

The deal was allegedly centered around this confiscated catch of sea cucumber which we told you about in February. That was for over three thousand pounds of the valuable seafood. Now usually this would be given away to a charity, but because no one in Belize really eats it – the Fisheries Department decided to sell the frozen sea cucumber to the highest bidder.

That was Guerra who says he bid at a price which the senior fisheries officer told him to. That cost him another thirty thousand dollars - but he says he never got anything.

The fisheries department says that he paid the money into the government treasury and should've gotten the sea cucumber from the Cooperative where it was stored. They also say that the senior fiheries officer had no power over sea cucumber licensed or the approval of bids for the sea cucumbers.

But Guerra says he got nothing except a sixty four thousand dollar debt. He is demanding that the fisheries officer repay him or face a lawsuit.