Trouble in Paradise
U.S. fugitives may think they can hide in Belize, but here's the untold story of how some get caught
Suspicious tourists. With such a small population, inhabiting an area not quite the size of Massachusetts, Belize has a bit of a small-town feel. Osterhout once located a fugitive less than 90 minutes after getting her description. The country never felt smaller to Osterhout than when he was trying to track down David Clenney, a Houston man wanted for kidnapping his 4-year-old son during a messy 2003 divorce. For Osterhout, the case began implausibly enough when a tourist vacationing in San Pedro on Ambergris Cay became curious about a father and son who were hanging out in a bar on Super Bowl Sunday last year. Suspicious about the father's story, she had her fiancé stage a photo of her with the other man in the background. After returning home, she scoured the missing-children websites and then called police after identifying Clenney.
Clenney, as it turned out, wasn't hard to find. Since Osterhout doesn't have a budget for investigations, he boarded the 15-minute flight to San Pedro for a short vacation. While his family enjoyed the water, he took a few hours to canvass some local contacts. Looking for information, Osterhout stopped at a hotel bar for a beer. Just 15 minutes later, Clenney's son walked in. "The kid plops down next to me at the bar," he recalls. "So I start talking to him." Osterhout quickly learned that Clenney was working and living at the hotel; he even saw Clenney later that evening at the bar. It took several weeks to arrange the paperwork to deport the father and return the child to his mother. Osterhout still has a photo of the boy playing with his badge at the San Pedro airstrip.
Of course, not everybody gets caught. Belize's most infamous fugitive is probably Joseph Ross, who once ran an aviation firm in Oklahoma. Ross was indicted for tax fraud in 1986 and eventually settled in Belize (having taken Belizean citizenship in 1988). He now runs a luxury jungle resort. But Osterhout recalls the words of one fugitive caught after a two-year chase: "You guys have no idea how many other fugitives are here."
Actually, they have at least some idea. As Osterhout wraps up his tour of duty in Belize, he will be leaving behind more than a dozen open cases--among them fugitives charged with murder, drug dealing, child pornography, and running a multimillion-dollar Ponzi scheme. Enough to keep his successor busy and to fill an episode of America's Most Wanted--Belize Edition.
[Belize map]
[labels]
Belize City
Belmopan
San Pedro
Ambergris Cay
Cay Caulker
MEXICO
BELIZE
Map by Danny Dougherty-- USN&WR
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