A public corruption and financial mismanagement investigation into the disappearance of up to $150,000 in public funds from the Belize City headquarters of Belize’s Immigration Department has expanded beyond the agency, with auditors now turning to the national Treasury Department for critical evidence, top auditing officials confirmed this week.
The probe was first launched in late June, after the Ministry of Immigration requested the Office of the Auditor General conduct a formal investigation into how the public funds vanished and which personnel may be implicated in the missing money. In an interview with local outlet News Five, Auditor General Maria Rodriguez explained that her investigation team was forced to take the extraordinary step of accessing Treasury and Accountant General Department records because the Immigration Department failed to produce critical paper trails and receipts tied to the missing funds.
“From our review of the department’s internal documentation, management did not have the required receipts for these funds on hand,” Rodriguez told reporters. “Unfortunately, that left us no option but to reach out to the Treasury Department and the Accountant General Department to pull their official copies of the transaction records. As three consecutive annual audit reports have already made clear, the Immigration Department’s records management system is still not functioning at an acceptable standard. That is why our team is now on-site at the Treasury collecting the documentation that should have been secured and stored by the immigration agency itself.”
When asked if these alternative official records would finally help investigators uncover answers about the missing cash, Rodriguez confirmed that the records held by the Accountant General — which are copies of transaction documents sent from the immigration department to the national accounting body during routine administrative processes — should fill critical gaps in the investigation. “That should give us the clarity we need. We are working off the centralized copies held by the accountant general, rather than the incomplete copies that were supposed to remain on file at the Ministry of Immigration,” she added.
To date, investigative authorities have focused their primary scrutiny on Jason Flowers, a former employee of the Belize City Immigration Department office where the funds went missing. As of this report, no formal charges have been filed, and the investigation remains ongoing.
This report is based on a transcript of a local television evening news broadcast, published online September 4, 2026.