67K of Marijuana Found by Checkpoint Cops

Calvin Augustus Lauriano

This evening, a group of four persons, who were busted inside a Cherokee jeep, were remanded to the Belize Central Prison, after the prosecutor objected to bail due to the huge amount of drugs found in their possession. The bust netted police sixty-seven kilograms of marijuana which is equivalent to one hundred and forty eight pounds of weed. Tonight, thirty-eight year old Calvin Augustus Lauriano, the driver of the vehicle, along with his three passengers, twenty four year old San Pedro resident, Marlon Osbaldo Chaneck, a Guatemalan national along with two females, twenty year old Dawn Parchue, and nineteen year old Eve Beeks, are on remand.

Marlon Chaneck

Police escorted the group to the Belize City Magistrate’s Court where they were arraigned before Magistrate Ladonna John and charged with one count each of Drug Trafficking. On Wednesday, at Mile thirty-one on the George Price Highway, the group of four was found in possession of the marijuana as they travelled on the highway and were stopped at a vehicle check point. They all pleaded not guilty. The court prosecutor, Corporal Noel Muschamp, objected to bail on the grounds that the amount of substance is in excess of five kilograms. According to police reports, a three person police team was conducting checks when the vehicle drove up. The driver was asked to turn on the lights inside the vehicle and that’s when police spotted the suitcases which contained the weed. The men are due back in court on August twenty-first, 2015.