Enforcement Arms Plan Multi-Agency Anti-Narcotics Approach

Greg Soberanis

The area of Consejo has been designated by the Belize Defense Force and the National Coast Guard as a hotspot for the transshipment of drugs and other contraband.  Despite ramping up efforts to police the area and maintain a presence in Consejo, Soberanis says an interagency approach that is being implemented has been instrumental in addressing the problem.

Lt. Greg Soberanis, Operations Officer, BNCG

“The commandant for the coast guard has implemented certain measures to increase the operational tempo for the coast guard and not only the operational tempo but the overall battle rhythm of how the coast guard conducts operations at sea and how coast guard supports our maritime partner agencies.  So various measures have been implemented, one of the key things for us, like I said, is the interagency approach to combating the threats that we face in our sea spaces, in our maritime domain.  It requires collaboration, coordination and every month we have a maritime security conference that is held here at the coast guard headquarters where we have approximately thirteen agencies, including N.G.O.s who feed into this forum, feed information, feed intelligence and we are able to coordinate and plan operations accordingly, in order, like I mentioned earlier, to combat the various and the plethora of threats that we face in our sea spaces.”

This is the third seizure of drugs that the coast guard has made since the beginning of January.