Ruben Stoll Reportedly Leaves Belize Before Arrest

Tonight, authorities are looking for Belizean-American Ruben Stoll, but they believe he has already left the country. The Belize Forest Department has prepared two charges against Stoll under the Wildlife Protection Act after a social media video showed him petting a wild jaguar cub that had reportedly been separated from its mother with a vehicle. The video sparked widespread public outrage over the weekend and quickly drew the attention of wildlife authorities. But before officers could locate him, Stoll reportedly crossed the northern border on Wednesday. Tonight, a warrant is out for his arrest. Forest Officer Victoria Chi tells us more.

 

Victoria Chi, Forest Officer

“No charges have been levied to them. What you said earlier is true, they were born in Belize. But, they do hold dual nationality. So it is, yes they are born here but they also hold U.S. passports. So, when they come into the country they will use their Belizean passport. So we reached out to immigration since the incident happened. So they had informed us that they would get back to us and that they would search their system to see when they came in and when they planned to exit. But I received a message yesterday from the immigration department to say that they exited the border yesterday, if I am not mistaken. So, our next step, because we know they come back to Belize so often, one of our next steps is to actually issue a warrant through immigration so when they come back they can be held and we will proceed to charge them.”

 

Interestingly, the charges only carry a small fine of five hundred dollars each.  

 

Attention readers: This online newscast is a direct transcript of our evening television broadcast. When speakers use Kriol, we have carefully rendered their words using a standard spelling system.

 

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