In Belize City, a controversial arrest has sparked outrage from a local family, who allege law enforcement has wrongfully detained an innocent woman while the actual scammer behind a fraudulent air conditioning purchase remains at large.
Anita Martinez, a small delivery business owner and mother of two, was taken into custody at her private residence on Monday night. She was later transferred to the northern district of Corozal, where investigators are interrogating her in connection with a scheme that used fake payment receipts to acquire two residential air conditioning units. But according to Martinez’s family, she is not the perpetrator – she is just another victim of the same scam.
Martinez’s sister shared detailed context in a phone interview, explaining that Martinez lost full access to her personal Facebook account to hackers four years prior to the arrest. Ever since the account was compromised, the unknown hackers have been using it to target and defraud other users across the platform. Earlier this month, Martinez even made a public post from her new active account, asking the general public to help her report the hijacked profile to platform moderators, warning others that the account was being used to send fake payment receipts and trick people into sending purchased goods.
“At the time, we never expected this would happen to her,” Martinez’s sister explained. “When she was taken into custody, we were completely shocked.”
According to the details Martinez shared with her family after being detained, all the evidence collected by police contradicts the theory that she is the culprit. The fake payment for the two air conditioners was sent from an account with Heritage Bank, a financial institution where Martinez has never held an account. The delivery package for the units was addressed to a person named Leah – a name that does not match Martinez’s legal identity, and the contact phone number listed on the shipment also does not belong to her. Unlike any legitimate package sent to her through Belize’s parcel delivery service BPMS IDS, Martinez never received a tracking number for the air conditioning units, confirming she never knew the shipment was headed to anyone connected to her.
Despite these clear discrepancies, police moved forward with the arrest, and now intend to charge Martinez with obtaining property by deception. Martinez’s family says law enforcement failed to conduct basic, thorough investigative work before taking their relative into custody, and have confirmed they are preparing to take legal action against the department over the alleged wrongful arrest and detention.
The family is now calling on police to re-examine the evidence, drop the charges against Martinez, and redirect their investigation to track down the actual hackers who have been operating the compromised Facebook account and carrying out the scam. This report is a transcript of an original television evening newscast, with Kriol-language dialogue translated and formatted to standard English spelling conventions for clarity.