The Foreign Service Journal, September 2005

When he was first assigned there in February 2002, Oster- hout had little experience chas- ing fugitives. So teaming up with the cash-strapped police gave both parties on-the-job training. Several policemen recall having to borrow one of Osterhout’s vehicles to make an arrest, or even to escort fugitives to the airport. These days, the cooperation is at a whole new level. “The Belize police have made a name for themselves with the assistance they’ve given us,” says Osterhout, noting they have even detailed a police sergeant to work at the embassy. For the local government, there is also plain self-interest. “These criminals, we do not wish to have them here,” says Commissioner Westby. “The political will is there.” Osterhout has also been careful to reward them by arranging U.S. help with equipment and training. “They give us incentives,” says Belize police inspector Alford Grinage. “They gave us a nice camera to help us take our ‘rogues’ gallery’ pictures.” And this past August, U.S. marshals went to Belize in August to conduct specialized train- ing. “Belize is very close to being one of the most coop- erative Latin American nations,” says James Schield, chief of international investigations at the U.S. Marshals Service. “And I expect it will get even better.” Osterhout’s first case began in April 2002, when he pursued Christopher Davis, a convicted murderer who violated his parole and fled to Belize. That was also when Osterhout realized just how valuable a sleuth Keith Hamilton was. A veteran Belize cop, Hamilton served with a Belize police tactical unit before found- ing his own security firm in New York and becoming a U.S. citizen. He’s been a full-time investigator with the U.S. embassy since 1999. After the U.S. marshals passed on the Davis tip, Hamilton spent months trying to chase Davis down as he hopped around the country, starting in a Belize City mosque and later moving deep- er and deeper into the jungle. Hamilton got close sev- eral times, tracking him at one point to a local restau- rant. The police raided the place, ostensibly looking for drugs, but Davis slipped out the back. Hamilton kept looking. One of his tipsters suggest- ed that Davis was holed up in a cabin deep in the jun- gle on 500 acres owned by the mosque. So late one starry night, Hamilton donned his Army camouflage and strapped on his Sig 9 mm pistol to trek into the jungle. As he approached the cabin, he could tell that it had been recently occupied. “It was a stick house, bound with wire, and a makeshift door,” he recalls. But several days of torrential rain had produced swarms of mosquitoes that had apparently driven Davis away. Finally, in mid-September, Hamilton got a tip that paid off. Police arrested Davis, covered in mos- quito bites, at a friend’s house and he was deported two days later. “Keith is like a pit bull,” says Osterhout, not- ing that Hamilton was named Civilian of the Year for 2003 by the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association. “I give him these cases and he just doesn’t let go until he gets these people.” Nabbing a Butcher Perhaps the most infamous case that Osterhout and Hamilton worked involved a Cuban nicknamed the “Butcher of South Beach.” The TV show “America’s Most Wanted” even did a 1999 segment on Reinaldo Silvestre, who allegedly posed as a Miami plastic sur- geon. Never licensed to practice medicine, Silvestre left behind him a trail of botched breast augmentations and scarred women, according to police. In one par- ticularly grisly operation, Silvestre allegedly gave breast implants to a Mexican bodybuilder who wanted pec- toral implants. Even worse, the bodybuilder remem- bers waking up in the middle of the surgery, apparent- ly not having been given enough anesthetic. After practicing for at least 16 months in Florida, Silvestre disappeared in May 1999. After a rerun of the episode in 2003, Osterhout got a call from the Miami police, who had been tipped off that Silvestre was practicing medicine in Belize. Within two months, Silvestre had been located, teach- ing at a local Belize medical college. But since Silvestre was not a U.S. citizen, he could not be deported to Miami. Instead, he would have to go through the lengthy extradition process. Indeed, it took more than a year for the extradition paperwork to be assembled in the United States and formally sent to Belize. In the meantime, Hamilton kept loose tabs on Silvestre, hop- F O C U S S E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 5 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 41 Four photos hung above Osterhout’s desk in Belize reveal the variety of a typical DS career.