Drugs on beach cause violence in Placencia
B>In the drug trade it’s called a wet drop: when a plane, usually from Colombia, discharges several tons of well sealed bundles of cocaine over a pre-arranged area of sea. The bales are then collected by local drug dons and warehoused for future shipment through Mexico and into the States. But not all wet drops are completed successfully. Sometimes the plane releases the drugs in the wrong spot. Occasionally, a few bales escape the sharp eye of the collectors. And on rare occasions, law enforcement officials harass the speedboats to the point where the smugglers actually throw their valuable cargo over the side to avoid getting busted. Any of these mishaps can result in a cornucopia of cocaine washing up on Belizean beaches. From San Pedro to Barranco, no spot on the coast or cayes is immune. Square Grouper is the name jokingly given to the catch, and in recent weeks no place has had better fishing than the village of Placencia. But one man’s easy money is another’s target of opportunity. And sometimes that target may not even know what’s going on.
Jackie Tipton
“I felt my eyes roll back and I stopped breathing. I felt myself dying.”
Janelle Chanona, Reporting
According to fifty-one year old year Jackie Tipton, in the early hours September eighteenth the safety of her own home was shattered when four intruders climbed through a window, using a ladder they found under her house.
Jackie Tipton
“Around two a.m. in the morning, I awoke and there were four men in my room. They were covered like this, they tore my dresses, and they put them like this on their hair so only their eyes could be seen. And one had a knife without the handle and I could see it all the way to his hand to here. He had it all the way–I could feel it inside of my collarbone inside. He cut part of my tongue off, a part. He cut me all the way down; I have a tunnel down in here. , then the second one was strangling me like this, the third one had a pillow on my face, and the fourth one was trying to tie my feet. I thought I was in a nightmare or something.”
A nightmare that lasted several hours…and one that was definitely drug related.
Jackie Tipton
“They kept saying, “where is the bale? Where is the bale?” And I kept saying, “I don’t have any weed, look around, I don’t have any.” And they said, “No, you know what we’re talking about, you it’s the thirty packs.” And I said, “I don’t know what you’re taking about.” And so, then they finally said, “You know you got twenty thousand dollars for the cocaine.” And then I remember that I heard about two weeks ago somebody who found a bale of cocaine and that he got twenty thousand dollars for it. And so I thought, they must think that I am associated with that person.”
Apparently that was an assumption the men strongly believed because Tipton maintains they were determined to get the answers they were looking for one way or the other.
Jackie Tipton
“All were Belizean cause I know the accent. He got really mad that they couldn’t find more. So he grabbed me and he started beating my back–and that’s why I think I have a slipped disc or something, there’s something really wrong with my back. He started beating my back and then he spread me on the bed, tied me down, put a knife in my vagina, and was just about to rape me. I was so scared, but the kept saying to me…I never cried, because they kept saying, we know that you’re afraid, we’re so tough and all this stuff. And I said no, “You almost killed me I’m not afraid anymore, just kill me.”
Then they started being nicer to me. The young one who was holding me pushed the big guy away and he said, “leave her alone, I don’t think she knows anything.” And so they made him get out of the room and then the young one when and got ice and put ice on my face and he gave me water and then he went and got weed and rolled a joint and said, “Here, this will make you feel better.”
Tipton says the men’s bizarre behaviour didn’t end there.
Jackie Tipton
“They kept saying, “If you don’t tell us where the money is, we know you have the money, then we are going to kill you.” They kept saying that, but I don’t see any guns or anything. And then, (laughs) I shouldn’t be laughing, but the dark guy goes and gets my blow dryer, and it has a long cord. And he puts a towel on it and you can see the cord hanging down and he comes and he puts it to my head, he younger guy was holding me, and he says, “If you don’t tell me right now where the money is I’m gonna blow your brains out.” And I said, “better plug the dryer in first.” (Laughs) And then the other two guys started laughing. Because I was trying…the whole time I kept thinking, if I talk to them, because I learned this a long time ago when I went to a whole rape thing with my daughter when she was a teenager, and they said if you keep talking you get personal, they probably won’t hurt you.”
To date, police have not made any arrests in this case, but sources tell News 5 recent events in the area have radically altered life on the Placencia peninsula. Reports are that several residents have discovered large amounts of cocaine washed up on the beaches. Tipton says she may have been seen with one of those people just before the attack, but denies any involvement with illicit drugs.
Jackie Tipton
“I don’t know why there is so much cocaine coming up. All from here up to Seine Bight, up to Plantation there is a lot of cocaine coming in. And so everybody wants it, they’re all greedy, and this is a slow time of the year. September and October people are always crazy because there are no tourists and everybody is broke. So, I don’t really know very much about that, about the cocaine. I’m not trying to act stupid, I telling you I just don’t really know.”
Large quantities of cocaine have also been reported washing up on the beaches of Northern Ambergris Caye.
