Mexican Importer Faces Charges Over Ham

Manuel Pastor Gomez Diaz

One hundred and fifty cases of ham imported into Belize since December 2016 remain in a container at the Port of the Belize. The importer is Mexican business, Manuel Pastor Gomez Diaz, who brought in the three thousand four hundred pounds of ham on December twelfth, 2016 without the required permit.  Diaz is the Director of a company located in the Corozal Free Zone, namely Coral’s Company Limited.  It is not the importation that has him in trouble, but instead Custom and Excise Department along with BAHA made an application for the forfeiting of Diaz’s ham before Senior Magistrate Sharon Fraser.  Diaz failed to send back the ham to its country of origin so the government dragged him to court.  When pressed in court, Diaz first said the hams had not been imported yet, but then admitted that the product had arrived into country without the permit.  The court learnt that Diaz had been given an option to send back the hams, but he did not. Diaz claims he thought his unnamed attorney was taking care of the matter. The court gave him until February twenty-first to deal with the matter. But since December he has accumulated charges of seven thousand dollars in port fees. The fine for the importation without the required permit is one thousand dollars.