Last night, we gave you a very detailed look into the latest set of leaked documents coming out of the Lands Department. Once again family members of the Vega clan, namely Ignacio German Vega, Karen Vega and Eduardo Vega ended up getting compensated for pre-owned land they got title to, but which the Lands Department ought not to have sold in the first place.
And it all follows a similar pattern, the piece of land in question is either already owned or is Government land. The Lands Department supposedly sells these already owned pieces of land to private citizens not named Vega. Sources tell us that these private citizens are usually chosen because their names won't raise any kinds of alarms. The transactions are made out to look as legitimate as possible, and the less known the individual, the better, and if they have no assets or land holdings, these persons are ideal candidates.
A series of land transactions are carried out in which these private citizens develop a history of ownership. They hold on to the paper ownership for a few months, and then, they sell it to a member of the Vega family - at a very low price to attract little or no stamp duty. If the land was indeed crown land, then the Vega family gets final ownership, usually a fraction of the cost at market value. If it was pre-owned land, the Lands Department's compensation protocol is triggered where the Government is obliged to compensate the final paper owners, with money from the public purse, or they are given alternative pieces of land.
In these latest transactions, civilians Krystel Guzman, Darrel Henry, and Amy Forte were allegedly sold 3 separate pieces of land on Caye Caulker, which is made up of prime real estate, worth 1.4 million dollars back in 2007. The documents say that they then sold their pieces of land to Ignacio German Vega, Karen Vega, Eduardo Vega, and Andre Vega. They supposedly collected $30,000 and $25,000 separately.
The land is privately owned, and so the Ministry of Natural Resources, headed by Gaspar Vega, compensated Ignacio German Vega, Karen Vega and Eduardo by given them several acres of island property on Mosquito Caye, off the Coast of San Pedro - very valuable properties close to Leonardo Di Caprio's Blackadore caye.
It's sweet come up, and we've since learned that Amy Forte from Belmopan didn't even know her name was used. We are told by sources that she was not even aware of the conveyance, or that the grant that was issued in her name. We're told that she had applied for a piece of land on Caye Caulker, and she never got the land she was seeking. It seems her application was fraudulently used and then flipped to the Vega's without her knowledge. We'll keep following this story.
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