On June 12, 2026, a major human trafficking case that stretched across nearly six years reached a landmark guilty verdict in Belize’s Dangriga High Court. Businessman Jin Zhou Wu was found guilty on all four counts of human trafficking brought against him, splitting into two charges of trafficking for forced labor and two additional charges of trafficking for sexual exploitation.
The origins of the case date back to mid-2018, when the Belize Police Department first received anonymous tips alleging that Wu was exploiting vulnerable women at his commercial property in southern Belize. Formal arrests would not come until 2020, when three Honduran women filed official complaints against the businessman that corroborated the earlier intelligence.
According to official case documents, the three young victims—aged 20 and 21 at the time of their exploitation—were lured across the border from Honduras in June 2019 with false promises of legitimate waitressing jobs. Once they crossed into Belize illegally with the help of a local female recruiter working for Wu, their situation quickly turned exploitative. Wu immediately seized their passports and other travel documents, confiscated their personal cell phones to cut off contact with the outside world, and forced them into sex work at his Sky Blue Bar located in Bella Vista Village, Toledo District.
Wu was first arraigned on the charges in October 2020 and was remanded to Belize Central Prison to await trial. He was later released on bail set at $15,000, a decision that drew quiet criticism from anti-trafficking advocates who argued he posed a flight risk. Following the guilty verdict delivered this week, Justice ordered Wu to be taken back into custody immediately. A sentencing hearing is scheduled for June 26, where the court will determine the length of his prison term and any additional penalties.
The prosecution was led by Director of Public Prosecutions Cheryl Lynn Vidal on behalf of the Crown, while Wu was represented by defense attorney Emerita Anderson throughout the trial. Anti-trafficking organizations in Belize have welcomed the conviction as a critical win for holding traffickers accountable, noting that long-running cases like this highlight the systemic challenges of prosecuting human trafficking crimes in small Central American nations.