Blanca Garay Rodriguez
A Honduran woman is the latest international fugitive to be caught in Belize. Forty year old Blanca Garay Rodriguez was on the run since early January; she was picked up at around eleven thirty in the morning at house at the Mile eight community on the George Price Highway. Rodriguez’s detention is considered major bust because it is believed she is the missing link in a smuggling ring originating from Honduras. While she is in violation of her visitor’s permit, Rodriguez is facing far more serious offences….human trafficking charges in Honduras. But today, she was taken to the Belize City Magistrate’s Court by Immigration Personnel to answer to one immigration offense. The records show that she entered Belize legally on January seventh on a three week permit which expired on January twenty-eighth and was not extended so Rodriguez was charged with Failure to Comply with a Visitor’s Permit. Immigration personnel had reportedly been tracking her and moved in when it was confirmed that she was wanted in Honduras. Today in court, Rodriguez, who speaks little English, was provided with a translator and she wasted no time in pleading guilty to the offense when she appeared before Magistrate Leslie Hamilton. Rodriguez was fined one thousand dollars which she was ordered to immediately or face six months in prison. A removal order requested by the Immigration Department was granted and with assistance from Interpol, Rodriguez is expected to be sent back home as early as Friday. It is believed that during her stay in Belize, she was lying low because she knew she was wanted.
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