5,000 pounds of cocaine is biggest bust ever

At news time police were still unable to provide an exact weight, but with estimates suggesting more than two and a half tons of cocaine, it is by far Belize’s biggest drug bust ever. This morning the police were taking a well-deserved bow… and News Five’s Jacqueline Woods was on hand for the show.

A.S.P. Joseph Myvett, Head, Anti Drug Unit
“The last large drug bust that I know about was roughly around thirteen hundred kilos or there about, so this is much larger than that.”<

Jacqueline Woods, Reporting
Monday’s early afternoon drug discovery is being described as the largest seizures in the nation’s history. The ninety-nine bales of suspected cocaine, weighing in excess of five thousand pounds, were dug out of the sand on an island in the Tobacco Caye Range, some nine miles east of Dangriga. According to authorities, it was a tip that led them to the site. The joint operation was conducted by the Dangriga police, Anti-Drug Unit, Belize Defence Force, and “friendly forces in the fight against drugs,” believed to be the U.S. D.E.A. Assistant Superintendent of Police and Head of A.D.U., Joseph Myvett, says the team arrived at the location just after midday on Monday.

ASP Joseph Myvett
“We visited the Tobacco Caye Range and approximately one mile west off the Caye proper in the Tobacco Caye Range, we observed three wooden houses on an island in that area. Upon making checks, one of the houses, which is approximately eight feet off the ground that has an open downstairs, upon making checks beneath the downstairs, we observed that the sand beneath the house as though it had been tampered with. As a result, the sand was dug up where we recovered ninety-nine bales of which we suspected to be cocaine. As a result of that, these drugs were then transported to Belize City where it has been under twenty-four hour security from since it arrived in Belize City sometime last night.”

It took the law enforcement officers some six hours to retrieve all the drugs. The bales each contain approximately twenty parcels weighing one point two kilograms each. The police say the haul has a street value of some eighty-three million U.S. dollars. Myvett does not know exactly how long the drugs may have been at the site, but based on what was observed on the ground, they strongly believe that the bales were buried just a few days ago.

A.S.P. Joseph Myvett
“The one where the suspected drugs were found beneath also two shovels and some food stuff was found beneath that house.”

Myvett says they found no one at the location, but did observed one person running away from the area as the security forces arrived in the vicinity.

A.S.P. Joseph Myvett
“They weren’t occupied at the time. One person was seen in the area, but he saw the police coming from afar off and made good his escape. We don’t know, the entire area was searched, however, he was not found.”

The police would not comment on who is the property owner or where they believe the drugs originated.

A.C.P. Edward Wade, O.C., National Operation
“As I speak, there is an ongoing investigation to try and determine who is responsible for bringing this particular amount of drugs into Belize and to see if we can find and apprehend those responsible.”

There were far more questions than answers at the police press briefing because, as explained by Assistant Commissioner of Police and Officer In Charge of Eastern Division Crispin Jeffries, the matter remains under investigation.

A.C.P. Crispin Jeffries, O.C. Eastern Division
“We need to hold a press brief and not a press conference where we have a million and one questions on things we cannot answer because it is still an ongoing investigation. But we are releasing information that we consider is out there already is necessary for you to know and we are trying our best, in the words of the Commissioner, to ensure that we display transparency.”

It is believed that the drugs were awaiting transhipment through Mexico into the United States. Jacqueline Woods for News Five.

The biggest drug bust prior to Monday’s haul took place on October ninth, 2001 in Belize City. It totalled over three thousand, three hundred pounds of cocaine.