Unregistered Oil Tanker Seized After Mysterious Arrival in Southern Belize

In southern Belize, a cloud of mystery is hanging over an oil tanker that suddenly appeared at the Big Creek Port this week; no warning, no explanation, just a ship that seemed to come out of thin air. The vessel, Humilde Viajero, docked with roughly fifty thousand gallons of diesel on board, but not a shred of legitimate paperwork. Tonight, the government has seized the ship, and investigators are scrambling to figure out how it slipped into Belizean waters and why even the captain couldn’t explain where the fuel came from. With multiple agencies now digging for answers, the big questions remain: what was this tanker doing here, and who’s really behind it?

 

Prime Minister John Briceño

“What we have said is that we have seized that tanker and whoever is responsible for that tanker will have to answer in a court of law and if necessary we are going to seize those fifty thousand gallons of diesel to put to use, we are going to sell it to Puma to ease some of the challenges we are facing.”

 

Paul Lopez

“What is the challenge they are facing to clear the tanker.”

 

Prime Minister John Briceño

“From what it seems and I have to be careful because this will end up in court. But this tanker just showed up. There is no documentation. Not even the captain said they don’t know what they have their, no invoice, no nothing. All of a sudden some paper just came up. So we are doing a full investigation. We are working with the AG ministry, DOE, the customs department, to ensure that if anything that was done unbecoming or illegally that we are going to deal with it to the full extent of the law.”

 

Officials say anyone linked to the mystery tanker will face the courts as they work to uncover who sent it and why it slipped into Belizean waters without warning.

 

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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