Belize is restructuring its response to criminal gang violence under a unified command, integrating intelligence, analysis, investigations, and law enforcement while expanding the use of data to anticipate crime rather than simply react to it. On July 3, 2026, the Belize Police Department created the Violence Prevention and Enforcement Team (VPAET), a national unit designed to coordinate efforts targeting high-risk offenders.
VPAET, led by Assistant Superintendent of Police Rodney Jones, was incorporated into a supervisory structure that also includes the Leadership Intelligence Unit (LIU) and the Gang Intelligence, Investigation and Interdiction Unit (GI3). All three units fall under the overall supervision of Senior Superintendent Christopher Noble.
The department says bringing the three units under a single command will strengthen coordination, improve information sharing, and prevent duplication of efforts. VPAET seeks to manage high-risk offenders through targeted surveillance, preventive patrols, and focused operations aimed at disrupting criminal leadership and reducing violent crime, Breaking Belize News reported.
The reorganization coincided with a broader effort to strengthen the Police Department. In July, Home Affairs Minister Julius Espat brought together former police commissioners and senior commanders to discuss crime prevention, institutional efficiency, public confidence, and officers’ working conditions, Love FM reported.
Efficiency as a doctrine
The Crime Fusion Center, created in late 2025, pursues the same objective on the information side: removing barriers to the timely exchange of data so investigators and commanders can respond more quickly and strategically to crime trends. Centralizing intelligence analysis and coordination is intended to strengthen prevention, investigations, and police operations nationwide, Love FM reported.
“We analyzed the department to improve efficiency and eliminate redundancies, and we saw that the Joint Intelligence Coordinating Center, INTERPOL, and COMPSTAT [a police management system based on crime data analysis] were duplicating efforts and not communicating as they should,” Belize Commissioner of Police Richard Rosado told the press. “That is how we came together as a command staff and created the Crime Fusion Center.”
The initiative also seeks to address another challenge: interoperability among databases. According to Rosado, the Police Department has separate systems for fingerprints, criminal records, and crime management, while agencies such as Immigration, Customs, and Transport maintain other databases containing information relevant to investigations. The Fusion Center aims to leverage real-time analytics, artificial intelligence, and data from multiple agencies to support police operations.
“In Belize’s case, integrating intelligence, investigations, and police operations under a single decision-making process is particularly relevant given the country’s characteristics,” Vanessa Cárdenas, an organized crime researcher at the International Affairs Observatory of Chile’s Finis Terrae University, told Diálogo. “For a police force like Belize’s, sharing intelligence and analyzing data allows it to better focus its efforts.”
Transnational threat
The reorganization comes as Belize continues to confront criminal threats that extend beyond its borders. The country is listed among the major drug transit countries identified by the United States for fiscal year 2026, a designation linked, among other factors, to its geographic location and regional routes used to move narcotics and other illicit goods.
Belize’s position between South America, Mexico, and the Caribbean, combined with its land and maritime borders, makes it a transit point exploited by transnational criminal organizations. Limited resources, intelligence, and investigative capacity have also posed challenges for the institutions responsible for combating these networks.
Against that backdrop, the reorganization seeks to make better use of available resources through greater reliance on intelligence and analysis. “Belize needs to strengthen specialized capabilities, such as investigations and analysis, regardless of the size of its police force,” Cárdenas said.
Technology, training, and cooperation
The organizational architecture only works if it has the tools and personnel needed to turn data into operational intelligence. Equipping the Fusion Center with software to analyze networks and data and produce maps would help connect information that is currently dispersed, while training analysts to manage those databases and determine which ones to use, Cárdenas said. “The U.S. has already supported this type of training in other Caribbean countries,” she added.
This type of capability is also part of Belize’s security cooperation with its partners. The United States has supported Belizean efforts to strengthen intelligence-based investigations and improve the interoperability and compatibility of law enforcement communications systems to counter drug trafficking.
“Belize’s cooperation with the U.S. and other regional partners is fundamental to making this integration model viable, eliminating redundancies, and making better use of information contained in its databases,” Cárdenas said.
Belize has also seen the value of intelligence sharing in regional operations. During Operation Orca XI, conducted between October and November 2025 across 20 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, INTERPOL supported participating countries in analyzing firearms-trafficking intelligence, developing national threat assessments, and coordinating cross-border information sharing.
The operation, in which Belize participated, resulted in 8,701 arrests, the seizure of 3,308 firearms, and 56 tons of drugs. Beyond the figures, preparations for Orca XI demonstrated how information sharing among countries can help guide operations against criminal networks that operate across multiple jurisdictions.
The next step is to maintain that flow of information on a permanent basis. “Belize needs access to databases on deported gang members and those who have traveled to the U.S. It also needs to exchange information in real time, particularly with Guatemala and Mexico, which are part of the criminal route,” Cárdenas said. “This cooperation also helps build the trust needed to share databases, which is a major problem in Latin America and the Caribbean, and U.S. support can help facilitate that exchange.”
Integrating specialized units and intelligence analysis allows information that was previously dispersed across different departments and institutions to be brought together. For a relatively small force, that flow of information can help identify links among individuals, routes, and criminal activities, better direct resources, and support targeted investigations and operations.
That capability is particularly important against criminal organizations that operate across borders and distribute their activities among different countries. By connecting intelligence, investigations, and operations, while strengthening information sharing with regional partners, Belize is expanding its ability to target criminal networks beyond individual crimes or actors.
