More Details of Recent Drug Plane Landing, Including Info of 2 Police Officers Detained

Two police officers have been detained in connection to the recent drug plane landing in southern Belize.

As we reported, authorities discovered the remains of the drug plane, which was deliberately set on fire after landing on a makeshift airstrip in the remote Toledo District near the Guatemalan border. The aircraft, suspected of being involved in smuggling, landed earlier this week in the Graham Creek area. A village council official, we understand, is also being detained after communication equipment was found in the official’s residence.

Of the two police officers, we are told that one is attached to the Anti Narcotics Unit while the other is a sergeant in the Special Patrol Unit.

Commander of the Belize Defence Force Brigadier General Azariel Loria told News 5 that “It is a law enforcement activity. The Belize Defence Force is in support because of the type of assets that we have.” Loria added that they have secured the remnants of the plan. “There are a few more details that I cannot share with you at this point in time, and I would refer you to the police department when it comes to that,” he added.

“We need to do quite a bit of investigation when it comes to that and get to the bottom of it. I think that there was one major figure that was detained and is, I don’t know if he has been arrested at this point in time, from one of the villages down in the south, which could lead us to more.”

He said that it is a drug trafficking network that law enforcement agencies are trying to dismantle. “By the detention of this person, I don’t want to share the details, and I would prefer for the Commissioner or somebody from the police department to go into those details, but I think we will have the potential to solve and, in so doing, dismantle the network down in the south.”