Belize - Belize News - Channel5Belize.com - Great Belize Productions - Belize Breaking News
Home » Crime » Colombians, Belizean arrested for arms
Jul 21, 2003

Colombians, Belizean arrested for arms

Story Picture
Acting on a tip, police visited a house in the Mitchell Estate area of Ladyville on Friday afternoon. According to Police Press Officer G. Michael Reid, a search of the house turned up enough firepower and equipment to outfit a small commando unit. But if the five Colombians and one Belizean arrested are in fact foot soldiers, they are part of an enemy army.

G. Michael Reid, Police Press Officer

“We believe that is a part of a whole drug operation, illicit drugs. To point, we have not found any drugs except for some cannabis that was on the premise also. But certainly with the evidence at hand it would seem that this would have been the reason for all of that.”

Patrick Jones, Reporting

Six people have been arrested and charged in connection with the raid. They are: Colombians Gonzalo Britton, thirty-seven, Jack Downs, forty-five, Noel Forbas twenty-one, Libardo Valerio fifty-eight and Donald Levi, forty. The sixth accused is Belizean Garrett Worrel Murray, who owns the house that was raided. The inventory of prohibited paraphernalia reads like this: one AK-47 machine gun along with twenty-three live rounds of ammunition, one nine millimetre Beretta brand pistol along with ten rounds of matching ammo, two large unlicensed radio units, and a large amount of fuel. This morning all six accused men were charged with the crimes of keeping a prohibited firearm, keeping an unlicensed firearm and ammunition and the possession of controlled drugs.

G. Michael Reid

“And we believe that they were a part of a bigger ring and at this point the intelligence unit is hard at work trying to come up with more information.”

Reid says not much background information on the Colombians is available at this time, but the police are working hard to find out why they were hiding out in Ladyville.

G. Michael Reid

“They are all Colombians and at this time the Immigration Department is dealing with that aspect. We don’t have any prior convictions as such of these persons so we really don’t know exactly when they came into Belize, you know, obviously what was their intent.”

Patrick Jones, for News 5.

Over eight thousand dollars in U.S. currency was also found on the Colombians. Police say that so far there is no evidence to link the group with a wet drop in Belize’s territorial waters several months ago. Investigations continue.


Viewers please note: This Internet newscast is a verbatim transcript of our evening television newscast. Where speakers use Kriol, we attempt to faithfully reproduce the quotes using a standard spelling system.

Advertise Here

Comments are closed