Where Did Suspected Drug Plane End Up After Touching Down in Belize?

A flight originating from South America on Monday night landed in Belize briefly before taking off once again to parts unknown.  It is suspected that the aircraft was carrying a consignment of illicit cargo upon its departure, however, when it touched down in northern Belize it seemed to have simply refueled and proceeded on its journey.  Despite a team of law enforcement officers being deployed into the area believed to have been the landing site, there was no sign of the airplane aside from the lights that were used to illuminate the crude runway.  This afternoon, Commissioner of Police Chester Williams discussed the events of the night before.

Chester Williams, Commissioner of Police

Chester Williams, Commissioner of Police

“Last night we had received information of a suspect aircraft coming our way from South America.  As we would normally do, JIOC, which is the Joint Intelligence Operation Center, began to mobilize and deploy members of the security forces to different locations where we anticipated this suspect aircraft may land and just around two a.m. or thereabout we were informed by a Mexican air asset that a plane had landed somewhere in the north.  I am not going to disclose the location at this time because police and other military personnel are still in the area conducting operations.  And so based on the information we had obtained from the Mexican air asset, we deployed to the location where we were told the plane was seen on the ground.  On the way to that location we received additional information that basically diverted the operation teams to different areas and searches were conducted, but so far nothing has been found.  Based on what the Mexican air assets had said to us is that the plane was a small plane, perhaps one of those small CESSNA single-engine planes and it did not stay on the ground for long.  About few minutes after landing, the plane took off again.  We did make our arrival at the makeshift airstrip where the plane landed and we found that it was still well-lit, they had all the lights around the area that guided the plane to land and so Scenes of Crime Personnel and police processed the area.”