For the past 3 weeks, we’ve told you about how the Senate has been attempting to get former Deputy Mayor Eric Chang and former City Council Employee Patrick Tillett to come before them and testify. They want both men to answer to allegations from the Auditor General and senior Immigration Officers, who say that, in late 2012, they bought 8 stolen visas to try to get Asian persons to travel to Belize.

This is one of the key incidents in the Auditor General’s Report, which reeks of corruption within the Department. That embarrassment is compounded by the fact that very little was done to take disciplinary action against the persons implicated in an internal investigation, and the Department heads did not call in the police to properly investigate the theft and illegal sale of Government property. 

We’ve told you how both Eric Chang and Patrick Tillett are refusing to show up to the hearings, and the Senate now has to compel them to show up. Chang will have quite a lot to answer to because the Auditor General’s Report also says that he took a fraudulent Belizean passport to Won Hong Kim while he was in a Taiwanese jail.

Well today, both men’s ears surely must have been ringing today because their names were called once again, and this time it followed explosive disclosures that they allegedly paid $5,000 for each of the stolen visa foils. Those allegations came from Immigration Officer Mark Tench, who went testified today. 

He was the officer who discovered that the visas were missing on December 26, 2012.  He was just coming on shift, and when he did to his handing-over procedure, he realized that the visas were missing. He told the Senate today, that he and 2 other immigration officers launched an intensive investigation, which led them down a strange trail in search of those visas. 

Here’s what he had to say today to the Senate Select Committee:

Mark Tench - Former Supervisor, BWBS
"Those visas were in a sheet like this, and somebody pulled 2 from the bottom, so those visas were being sold day by day until the morning that I went in and found that it was not there. Port Commander Belmopan Office, in charge of the Visa Sections, he gave me the information that he had an encounter with Mr. Tillett. I went and spoke to Mr. Cano, told him about the information that I had, and he sanctioned an operation for us to go to interview Mr. Tillett. It was 3 of us that he sent, 3 supervisors, myself, Miss Morales, and Miss Jones. I called back Mr. Tillett, and I told him that we were coming to Belize that same day, immediately, and he said that he was willing to speak with us, and he was going to bring somebody with him. That's what he told us, and I said, no problem. I told him where he does he want us to meet, and he said, we should meet at the Calypso. We met Mr. Tillett, and with him was Mr. Chang, who was the Deputy Mayor at the time, I think - if I am not mistaken - of Belize City."

Hon. Aldo Salazar - Chairman, Senate Select Committee
"Did anybody explain the purpose of Mr. Chang being there?"

Mark Tench
"Well, Mr. Chang informed us that he was the one who was getting the visas for some people, and they had bought it through a person, and they had realized that the visas were not good, not valid, and that is why they had taken it to Belmopan Office. What they wanted, they wanted us to help them get back their money. That was why they chose to meet with us. They wanted to see if we could help them get back their money that they had lost through that deal that they had made."

Hon. Aldo Salazar
"Do you know the amount of money?"

Mark Tench
"According to them, it was $5,000 per visa."

Hon. Aldo Salazar
"They wanted their money back?

Mark Tench
"They admitted that they had bought the visas. They paid $5,000 per visa, and that the visas were not done properly. They also told me that they had looked at a person who had gotten another legitimately issued visa, and they could have seen some of the discrepancies. So, once they saw that, they decided to see if they can get the visas fixed in the office in Belmopan."

Hon. Aldo Salazar
"You met with Eric Chang and Patrick Tillett, and they told you that they bought the visas from somebody who has a nick name, but you can't recall it at this time."

Mark Tench
"I can't remember the nickname, but he also told us that the person, one of the time that they had met with the person, he was with an Immigration Officer, a female Immigration Officer. That was Mr. Tillett. Mr. Tillett doesn't know the officer by name. All he knew was that this officer had a sister who worked at BTL, but when he said that, we knew which officer he was talking about. His reasoning was that they had already gotten some visas legitimately, but they had wanted more, and the Minister said no, and so they found an agent. They found a person who they called an immigration agent. That was the terminology that they used for Mr. Middleton."

Hon. Aldo Salazar
"Did your investigation lead you to a particular person?

Mark Tench
"We went to Orange Walk. We eventually met up with Miss Cassanova, and we explained to her about what we were doing there, and that we needed to speak to Mr. Middleton. And she called Mr. Middleton, and he appeared. He came."

Hon. Aldo Salazar
"Did he identify anybody to you who gave him the visas? Or did he admit that he had them?"

Mark Tench
"Mr. Middleton told us that he did sell the visas, but that he had gotten them from another person, who lived in Corozal. We took Mr. Middleton with us to Corozal, and we went to the gentleman's house, Cadafi. And, he pulled me aside, and he told me -"

Hon. Eamon Courtenay - PUP Senator
"He, Cadafi?"

Mark Tench
"Yes, he pulled me one side and told me, Mr. Tench, he only assisted. He said that he only assisted Mr. Middleton with selling the visas, but that Mr. Middleton was the brains behind this operation. But, we had to go all the way to Corozal to find that out. He didn't know the officer that had taken them, but he knew the officer who he had gotten them from."

Hon. Aldo Salazar
"Who was that?"

Mark Tench
"Mr. L. Wade."

Hon, Aldo Salazar
"Mr. L. Wade."

Mark Tench
"He also made a phone call later that week, like 4 days later -"

Hon. Aldo Salazar
"It's Linsey Wade, right?"

Mark Tench
"4 days later, where he - "

Hon. Eamon Courtenay
"Who made this phone call."

Mark Tench
"Mr. Middleton to the office in Western Border, where we had all supervisors in the office on a speaker, on the speakerphone, and he again told us the same name that he had gotten the visas from."

Hon. Eamon Courtenay
"Why did he call?"

Mark Tench
"We called him."

Hon. Eamon Courtenay
"Why?"

Mark Tench
"Mr. Cano wanted to  - we were trying to find out who were the officers who had - because we knew that there were more officers involved, but - and we were trying to get him to reveal more information. But, all he would tell us is that that's the one person, and he doesn't know anything more, and that's -"

Hon. Eamon Courtenay
"Why would you say that you knew that other officers were involved?"

Mark Tench
"Because of things that were said around the border at the time, and we even interviewed a couple of those officers that we suspected, but they had already - they had already found out that we had done that investigation. Somebody had told one person what we had found, and so, they were basically prepared for when we called them into the office to interview them."

Hon. Aldo Salazar
"It would have been easy for somebody who is minded to steal the visas, to have access to them because they weren't kept."

Mark Tench
"Yes, it wasn't as like how we changed all of those procedures after, but at the time, nobody would have assumed that somebody from our department would do that. That person just wait for the opportunity to take it."

Hon. Aldo Salazar
"No, what I am saying, was it somewhere that the general public had access to?"

Mark Tench
"No, because, we never thought from the beginning that it was from the public that took it. We thought that it was an officer that took it."

Hon. Aldo Salazar
"So, the source of the questions that it was an officer that took it. It has to be one of the 12 people."

Mark Tench
"Yes, we are not disputing that. All we are saying is that any officer who had the intent, they would have just waited for the opportunity to take it. And because they have been officers for over - most of them a long - nobody would have looked at them in any kind of suspicious manner. They had access to Mr. Cano's officer; they had access to the office that we worked in. They could - anybody - as soon as anybody could have been distracted, they could have done it. What we don't know is when exactly, and the time. But, we knew that it was immigration persons."