Cocaine smugglers who visited the Jewel get locked up

Two big players from Panama were found guilty in a Federal Cocaine Conspiracy case. And what makes their trial of interest to us, is that the men were smuggling large quantities of cocaine from Belize. Dr. Michael Reed, a successful surgeon who owns more than thirteen million dollars worth of property, and Hector Melara, owner of AAA Limousine in Panama City Beach, were indicted on charges of Conspiring to Possess and Distribute Cocaine along with five other men involved in the smuggling ring. The plans came about when Melara, Reed and a third unidentified man, came to Belize on a cruise and met with a relative of Melara’s who had access to large quantities of quality cocaine at low prices. Since then, Melara’s relative in the Jewel supplied one kilogram of the drug in February of this year and another kilo in May. Reed and Melara were also working with Dario Espinosa, who is an alleged drug smuggler by occupation, in Panama. But by May, Espinosa was working along with government investigators and when Melara picked up the cocaine from him and delivered it to Reed, their operation was thwarted and the men were arrested later that day. They both pleaded guilty and were sent off to prison last Thursday.