7 News Belize

Why Did Patrick Take Such A Money Hit?
posted (March 9, 2017)
So, you saw how the Senate Committee had great difficulty accepting Patrick Tillett's explanation for why this "immigration agent", identified as "Mr. Middleton", was being paid $3,000 to take the six visa applications for Tillett's "clients" to the Belmopan Immigration Office. Tillett says that he paid this agent $30,000, which included the total fees for all 6 visa applications, as well as "Mr. Middleton's" cut for each of the 6 visas.

The agent came back and brought him the visa stickers inside each of the 6 passports, but the visas were missing important security features, such as the department's stamp, and a signature of the issuing officer. This meant that these Chinese "clients" couldn't use them to travel to Belize. Tillett says that he refunded the "clients" their money, which caused him to take a $24,000 financial hit. Though he is alleging that a crime happened, where he was jilted out of money, along with the forgeries with the visas, Tillett never went to the police.

The Senate was had a tough time accepting the story, and they repeatedly challenged him on it. Here's the back and forth:

Patrick Tillet - Former Financial Controller, Belize City Council
"The agent didn't bring me the 6 visas he brought back the passport with the visas in them as if though they were genuine and authentic. I gave them to the people concerned and one of them came back and said that the visa wasn't properly filled out. I returned the visas to Belmopan, showed Mr. Reynolds. He says 'these visas are genuine authentic visas, the person seemed to have miss off the stamp on the signature'. I returned it to the agent so that it could be properly issued. What I wanted was to properly issue visas from the department of immigration."

Hon. Eamon Courtenay - PUP Senator
"You just told this committee under oath that you did not want to be the face. You did not want to be involved in immigration, because of the history of immigration in 20 years. Less than 5 minutes later you are telling this same committee that you are walking into immigration to deal with an immigration matter?"

Patrick Tillet
"Yes."

Hon. Eamon Courtenay - PUP Senator
"You're finding this credible?"

Patrick Tillet
"Yes because what I expected did not occur so I felt that I needed to be involved. I did not want to be involved, but if something was wrong then it was something unusually wrong. Somebody perpetrated a fraud, got me involved and I am as angry as any other person, because I don't understand why a person would steal government $2,000 per visa when I gave them the money, paid them handsomely even less than I was getting to do this and steal the government portion."

Hon. Aldo Salazar
"No but you went to George Reynolds"

Patrick Tillet
"Yes but he said it was authentic."

Hon. Aldo Salazar
"But why did you go to George Reynolds?"

Patrick Tillet
"Because the visa had something missing."

Hon. Aldo Salazar
"What was missing?"

Patrick Tillet
"Missing stamp and signature and when Mr. Reynolds said the visa is genuine it only needs to be corrected, then I simply did the correction because that is what he is hired to do, handle those things. Well he took them and brought them back and when he did they were stamp, but the stamp was different it had a cashier stamp. I didn't feel comfortable, that was it. I just never bothered."

Hon. Eamon Courtenay
"And you repaid the clients?"

Patrick Tillet
"Yes."

Hon. Eamon Courtenay
"The full amount?"

Patrick Tillet
"Yes."

Hon. Eamon Courtenay
"And you demanded anything back from Mr. Middleton?"

Patrick Tillet
"Yes of course but he never..."

Hon. Aldo Salazar
"You were running a legitimate business, you were scammed out of your money that you legitimately charged and when you found out about this did you report the matter to the police?"

Patrick Tillet
"No."

Hon. Aldo Salazar
"Why not?"

Patrick Tillet
"All these things are word of mouth, cash transactions. It's neither here nor there as far as I am concerned."

Hon. Aldo Salazar
"But your clients paid for visas and they didn't get any, because it involved stealing government property."

Patrick Tillet
"Yes."

Hon. Aldo Salazar
"Defrauding the government of revenue and stealing your money and you didn't see it fit to involve the police?"

Patrick Tillet
"No I didn't."

Hon. Aldo Salazar
"Did you speak to the director of immigration?"

Patrick Tillet
"No."

Hon. Mark Lizarraga
"You loss $30,000, but you were only making personally $6,000. But you decided you would suffer $30,000 in loses."

Patrick Tillet
"Yup."

Hon. Mark Lizarraga
"And where did you get the $24,000 to cover those loses?"

Patrick Tillet
"From my personal resources. Where else would I get it?"

Hon. Mark Lizarraga
"And where was that? Where did you get that money from?"

Patrick Tillet
"From my personal resources."

Hon. Mark Lizarraga
"You had it in the bank?"

Patrick Tillet
"Yes, I suspect so,"

Hon. Mark Lizarraga
"You suspect?"

Patrick Tillet
"Yes from my bank account."

Hon. Mark Lizarraga
"Okay, you had a bank account and you had $24,000 and you suffered those losses?"

Patrick Tillet
"Yes."

Hon. Mark Lizarraga
You are an accountant and part of what you do should be to advise the client on how best to receive value for money. Is that correct?"

Patrick Tillet
"Yes, that what I do for clients sometimes."

Hon. Mark Lizarraga
"But you didnt practice it for yourself."

Patrick Tillet
"Sometimes that happens."

Hon. Carla Barnett
"$24,000 is an addition to a house. It's a car, it's not a runner to deliver visa applications to immigration. It just doesn't add up. Not only do they not deliver on the visas, but they kept your money. That's not a nice place to be. Why would you accept that? Why would you go along with that? Because that's what you did by not reporting it."

Patrick Tillet
"I expected that immigration was well aware of the situation, doing their investigations and that this matter would have been fully investigated and those involved dealt with."

Hon. Mark Lizarraga
"When did you find out that the receipts that were issued were not the proper government's receipts?"

Patrick Tillet
"Nothing was confirmed until the meeting with Mr. Tench. That's when you really knew. You may have had suspicions and so forth, but you didn't know for a fact until Mr. Tench showed up and that was a month later."

Hon. Mark Lizarraga
"And Mr. Tench showed up because you wanted your money back."

Patrick Tillet
"No. Money is dead. It's a month later. Why would I want money back? That's dead."

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