And that's why for weeks we've been reporting on the security contracts that the Airports Authority awarded to favored companies in the aftermath of the April 17th Tropic Air Hijacking. Well, it turns out it wasn't in the aftermath - it was before the hijacking. But the details on dates and contract amounts have been hard to come by. So two weeks ago we sent in a freedom of information request to the Airports Authority. Jules Vasquez got his answer two days ago - and tonight he reports on what was disclosed:

ISECURITY and Four Diamond Security are the recipients of 10 year contracts from the Belize Airports Authority.

Over that period, ISECURITY's contract is valued at 13.5 million dollars and Four Diamond's contract is valued at 15 million dollars. It's a total of 28.5 million dollars over the life of the contract or about 2.85 million dollars annually.

It's not cheap and the Airport Authority says it realized the the need for the contracts after two events:

First, there was this incident of a suspected explosive device on a Maya aircraft in September of 2023- we note that was later confirmed to be a used consumer grade pyrotechnic device, and then the theft of a Maya Airlines Cessna Caravan from the Placencia Municipal - a theft pulled off by narco traffickers which ended in a fiery blaze. The Airports Authority says these, quote, "gave rise to heightening focus of security which was primarily focussed on securing the aircrafts." End quote.

But, it would be more than a year later in December of 2024, when hints of election were in the air that these hefty contracts were awarded. And that process in itself was unusual.

The bids were not put out to open tender but instead put to selective tendering to, quote "include selected security companies that provide security services for the Phillip Goldson International Airport and other licensed security services companies."

But only three companies were invited to tender - two of them who do not provide security and the airport - and a third which is un-named.

Those companies we spoke to at the PGIA said they were not invited.

And the terms of the tender make no reference to TSA certification or any specialized training.

ISECURITY - recipient of the 13.5 million dollar contract is owned by consummate PUP insider from the north, Ian Cal, while Four Diamonds is owned by Michael Estephan who also has links to the current administration.

According to the terms of the contract, the companies started getting paid on January first, 2025. But, what were they getting paid for? The contract states that "services include daytime passengers and luggage screening for aerodromes situate only in Belize City, San Pedro, Caye Caulker, and Placencia."

But we know that in April when the hijacking occured - ISECURITY at least was not active at the airstrips and after that they were rushing to get up to speed - hurriedly getting a one week crash course in airport security from the PGIA - which 12 of the 18 officers failed - according to sources at the airport. At that point, under the terms of the contract ISECURITY would have already been paid 173 thousand dollars - but when their officers showed up for work at the airstrips on May 6th, they were woefully underprepared - according to sources at these facilities. By May, under the terms of the contract they would have been paid over two hundred thousand dollars - which seems enough to mobilize.

But, when we checked today, we saw KBH Security stationed at Tropic air, while police and a security officer wearing green ducked inside.

And if the companies seemed ill equipped - it may be because of the unusual timing of the tendering process.

The Airports Authority discloses no date for when the invitation for bids was sent out but it seems the authority was in a rush to award them before Christmas. Bids had to be delivered by December 19th - which was a Thursday and were opened by Friday December 20.

And then by Monday, the 23rd, ISECURITY was awarded its contract, while Four Diamond got its one on the 24th. - the deals signed and sealed just in time for Christmas.

But, not in time to prevent the April hijacking -which would not have been covered in any case - because the security was not assigned to cover the Ranchito Airstrip.

And to include the low volume Ranchito airstrip, the Airports Authority says the contracts are currently being "reviewed and renegotiated." Notably, the BAA did not disclose the full contracts which we requested under the Freedom of Information Act. They cite national security concerns for the non disclosure, but since contracts can be redacted and not completely withheld under the Freedom of Information Act - we intend to challenge that. We'll let you know how that goes.