A fisherman who was ordered in the Magistrate Court to pay a
total of roughly $150,000 for fishing violations, said that he only
did it to pay outstanding school fees for his kids.
by Charles Gladden
BELIZE CITY, Wed. June 8, 2022
On Sunday, June 5, the Belize
Fisheries Department, along with the
Belize Coast Guard, successfully
conducted two major busts at
Lighthouse Reef and Glover’s Reef
respectively—both of which involved
the discovery of prohibited catch in the
possession of fishermen who, in the case
of the two men found at Glover’s Reef,
had ventured into protected areas where
they should not have been fishing. In
total, five fishermen were detained and
were facing a raft of charges for a
number of fishing offenses, for each of
which they would have to pay a fine.
The final tally for the long list of offenses
was staggering—over a hundred and
fifty thousand dollars for one of the men.
On Tuesday, June 7, the three
fishermen who were caught out at Hat
Caye, along the Lighthouse Reef—38-
year-old Leroy Samuel Ruiz, 26-yearold
Denielle Anselmo Solis, and 28-yearold
Wilbert Omar Rivas, were arraigned
in the Magistrate’s Court in Belize City
and were read five fisheries offenses
jointly.
The charges read to the trio were for
possession of Nassau Grouper fillet (1
count), possession of fillet fish without
a skin patch (1 count), and possession
of prohibited fish (3 counts) – which
included 12 angelfish, 12 triggerfish, and
Fisherman charged over
$150,000 for Fisheries violations!
A fisherman who was ordered in the Magistrate Court to pay a
total of roughly $150,000 for fishing violations, said that he only
did it to pay outstanding school fees for his kids.
76 parrot fish.
Only one of the theee
men, Leroy Ruiz, would
take responsibility for all the
offenses, however—thus
paving the way for the
charges against the other
two (Rivas and Solis) to be
withdrawn. Ruiz, after
pleading guilty to the
offenses, told the court that
his desperate need to pay
outstanding school fees for
his children had driven him
to commit what he had
known were violations of
the current Fisheries laws.
Because it was Ruiz’s
first offense, the magistrate
fined him $10,000 for each
of the five listed offenses, which, together
with the $5 cost of court fee for each
offense, totaled $50,050. To this was
added a fine of $100 each for the
grouper fillet, a $3,400 fine for the 68
fish fillets without the patch, $24,000 for
the angel fish and triggerfish, and $76,000
for the parrot fish, which had all been
found in a white crocus bag on the boat
in which the men had been fishing. In
total, Ruiz will thus have to pay a fine of
$153,525 between September 30 and
December 3 of this year if he is to avoid
a 9-month prison sentence that he would
have to serve in lieu of payment. It is
also possible that, if he fails to pay the
fines, the authorities will seize his
personal property, including household
items of his, to cover the amount he has
been ordered to pay.
After the charges against Solis and
Rivas were withdrawn by prosecutor
Calmam Hall, however, they were free
to leave the court.
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