In Belize, Fugitive SUVs

By Kevin Whitelaw

The current issue of U.S. News traces the success that one federal agent has achieved in bringing home American fugitives on the lam in the Central American nation of Belize [Trouble in Paradise, 8/15/05]. Thad Osterhout, an agent with the State Department's Diplomatic Security Bureau and the regional security officer at the U.S. Embassy in Belize, has returned some 57 wanted criminals to the United States during his 3-year posting in Belize. But it's not just murderers, drug traffickers, and pedophiles who've been shipped home. Osterhout has also managed to return more than $800,000 worth of stolen luxury cars.

BELIZE CITY, BELIZE—It all started somewhat by accident when a disgruntled tipster walked into the U.S. Embassy here in 2002. The man was angry because a business contact had backed out of a promise to purchase a Cadillac Escalade through him. Instead, the man found someone who was selling a brand-new Escalade from the United States for half the sticker price. The deal seemed too good to be legal. Indeed, armed with the car's description and vehicle identification number (VIN), Thad Osterhout worked with General Motors to determine that the car had been stolen and "cloned," meaning that thieves had outfitted the stolen car with a VIN from a legitimate one to mask the theft.

"I had never worked stolen vehicles before," Osterhout says. "It's not a normal DS [diplomatic security] thing." This time, the car was mysteriously cleared through Belize customs (apparently thanks to the buyer's political connections) and disappeared.

But in the following weeks, another Escalade and a pair of Hummer 2s showed up in customs, all with preposterously low sales prices. When a U.S. expert came down to inspect the suspicious cars, he reported that they were some of the best clones he had ever seen–the thieves had even sanded off the confidential VINs buried deep in the car's innards.

It took two days of scrubbing the cars with acid to determine the original VINs. Many of the cars, it turned out, had been stolen from dealers' lots in Texas and taken to Mexico, where they were cloned. Eventually, news about the stolen cars leaked to the local press, and the Belize government began returning many of the luxury SUVs to the United States.

"We're getting these vehicles back, which is not the case in most Central American countries," says Osterhout, noting that there are suspicions that some of the stolen cars are tied to terrorist financing.

Osterhout even helped repatriate a stolen parasail boat. The boat had been snatched in Florida. The thief and his son then sailed it toward Cuba, where they ran out of gas. They were picked up by Cuban authorities but somehow were released. They then sailed across to Mexico and down the coast to Belize on the one-engine, 26-foot open boat. By the time Osterhout received a tip that they were anchored in one of Belize's many islands, the two men had lost their shirts and shoes.

"They were actually happy to see me," he says. The boat was eventually returned to its owner and the two men were deported home to Florida.