An independent investigative probe by Belize-based outlet News Five has uncovered a two-year pattern of undisclosed government payouts totaling $5.7 million in taxpayer funds to a private agribusiness with direct ties to the family of sitting cabinet minister Oscar Mira. The investigation’s findings, drawn from more than 60 direct screenshots extracted from the government’s own internal financial management platform Smart Stream, paint a troubling picture of unorthodox financial processing that has sparked intense scrutiny over public procurement protocols and potential conflicts of interest.
A deep dive into 620 recorded transactions confirms that the repeated payments were directed to MP Farms, a company officially owned by Mira’s brother Stanley Mira, with a second brother, Brian Mira, listed as the primary point of contact for the business. The payments stretch from September 2024 through June 2026, with the overwhelming majority of the funds – approximately $5.6 million of the total $5.7 million – originating from the Ministry of Defense and Border Security, the department overseen by Mira. An additional $139,000 was disbursed across 11 separate invoices from the Prime Minister’s Office, earmarked for what are listed as grocery supply services.
Analysis of the transaction data reveals clear, unusual spikes in payout activity, with the three largest monthly disbursements recorded in May, September, and December of 2025. September 2025 alone saw 103 invoices processed for a total of $901,899.83, followed by December 2025 with 78 invoices summing to $704,808.44, and May 2025 with 76 invoices totaling $691,225.99. Even more alarming to oversight observers is the volume of invoices cleared for payment in single business days: on September 25, 2025, 54 invoices worth a combined $482,751.45 were processed; on December 1 of that same year, 49 invoices totaling $446,661.36 were approved; and just six months prior on May 30, 2025, 46 invoices adding up to $418,836.84 cleared the system. Combined, these three single-day payouts exceed $1.3 million, nearly a quarter of the total two-year disbursement.
This bulk processing pattern has raised urgent questions about whether required financial reviews were actually conducted before approval, or if the payments were simply signed off in mass batches without appropriate oversight. One particularly unusual transaction saw an identical payout of $152,834.28 processed twice: once on December 3, 2024, and again on January 16, 2025, both sent directly to MP Farms via the Smart Stream system.
The overall growth in payouts also raises flags: between September and December 2024, total payments to the company hit just over $461,968. That figure surged dramatically to nearly $4 million in all of 2025, with more than $1.7 million of that total disbursed in the second half of the year. As of June 2026, payments have already reached approximately $1.3 million, putting the current year on track to exceed 2025’s disbursement levels.
Investigators also noted a deliberate pattern of structuring invoices to avoid mandatory oversight protocols: out of the 613 total processed invoices, 600 were issued for amounts under $10,000 – the official threshold that triggers additional review from the Ministry of Finance and requires a competitive formal tendering process. Only 13 invoices exceeded the $10,000 threshold, and 7 were later marked as cancelled for unstated reasons.
In response to the publication of the investigative findings, News Five reached out to Prime Minister John Briceño for comment on the mounting public concerns over the transactions and their impact on public trust in government. When asked how he reacted to learning that close to $6 million in taxpayer funds had been directed to a sitting minister’s family business over two years, Briceño acknowledged that the situation merited investigation, but urged the public to avoid jumping to conclusions before a formal review is completed.
“Of course it is something to question,” Briceño stated in a phone interview. “But let us not get carried away by the number. Let us look at ensuring that there was value for money. That to me is even more important than the appearance. But let us wait until we get the report.” When pressed whether the transactions amounted to nepotism, Briceño said that Minister Mira has denied any involvement in securing the contracts, and that he accepts Mira’s denial at this stage. “When he came to see me this morning, Minister Mira says he was not involved in anyway with any of these issues,” Briceño explained. “And so, it is easy to cast aspersions, point fingers, but when he is telling me that he is not anyway involved then I think it is difficult to say that he was the one behind it, because he wanted his family to get these contracts.”
The investigation is ongoing, with public accountability advocates calling for a full independent audit to determine whether proper protocols were followed and whether public funds were misused.