Two charged for Importing Prohibited Drugs

There is ongoing investigation about suspect cargo coming through Belize and today two men were taken to court and slapped with charges of importing prohibited goods. This past Monday, Lennox Bowman went to the Customs Department with a DHL airway bill to clear a package that he claimed contained dialysis fluid for a kidney ailment. Standard procedure at the customs for pharmaceutical products meant that the examination section would inform the investigative section of customs. The procedure was followed and the parcel was examined at the Taca warehouse. During the inspection the examining officer found that the labels on the tablets were marked pseudoephedrine, a banned drug.

The Anti Drug Unit was called in to the TACA warehouse and as a result both Bowman and the drugs were taken in. It was further revealed that ten thousand, two hundred and forty tablets were contained in each box totaling two hundred and forty milligrams of pseudoephedrine valued at forty-six thousand dollars. Bowman said he no longer suffered from any kidney disease, and that he was no longer the owner of the tablets. He quickly fingered Bruce Vergo as the actual owner of the package. Investigations revealed that Vergo was the person who first picked up the DHL airway bill.

Vergo was also picked up by the police. This afternoon at two-thirty in Magistrates’ Court Lennox Bowman and Bruce Vergo were jointly charged with importing prohibited goods and fined three times the value of the drug, that is, a hundred and thirty-eight thousand, two hundred and forty-eight dollars. Bowman and Vergo pleaded innocent to the charges and were offered bail of ten thousand each plus a surety. They return to court on September twenty-fourth.

When extracted, pseudoephedrine can be chemically combined with other substances to manufacture Methamphetamine or crystal meth, which is more addictive than heroine or cocaine and is in high demand in the U.S.