A cavalcade of errors led to the arrest of Richardson Gonzales Baez by immigration officials in the British Virgin Islands.
Baez was found guilty of providing falsified information to immigration officials at the Terrance B Lettsome International Airport on Beef Island in an attempt to gain entry into the British Virgin Islands.
The court heard that on March 7, 2019 Baez arrived at the local airport and presented a French passport to immigration officials. Upon closer inspection of the document, it was noted that the passport number that should have been positioned vertically was not. Further, the gender given in the passport indicated that Baez was female when he is not. Other errors in the document included a misspelling place of issue and the signature on the passport was also different from the signature on the Immigration form that Baez filled out on his arrival in the territory.
The court further heard that a thorough search of Baez’s luggage uncovered another passport issued by the Dominican Republic, his home country, as well as a British Virgin Islands visa, a voter ID card, a police certificate from the Dominican Republic as well as a job letter from a construction company in the British Virgin Islands.
The visa also contained basic spelling errors of the words ‘office’, ‘Islands’ and ‘journey’, and the authorising signature on that document did not match the signature of any person employed at the British Virgin Islands Civil Registry and Passport Office.
