25 Bales, 9 Men, 1 Burnt Drug Plane

As we reported earlier, the drug plane interception and bust yielded twenty-five bales or seven hundred and fifty individual kilos of cocaine.  The street value of the cocaine haul that was seized is still being calculated.  While the men on board the vessel were found in possession of two bales, the remaining twenty-three were discovered near the crash landing site. Acknowledging that it would be difficult to charge the men for the quantity found near the airplane, Commissioner of Police Chester Williams says police will undertake an additional investigation.

Chester Williams

Chester Williams, Commissioner of Police

“A search of the area led to the discovery of twenty-three bales of cocaine, or suspected cocaine.  That too was taken into the custody of police, brought here and again, each of those twenty-three bales contained thirty parcels or thirty bricks.  That has also been weighed and, just let me give you the total weight of that, it amounted to seven hundred and thirty-two kilos.  That, for now, will be labeled as found property, as even though we can see that the packaging of the two bales found with the group of nine is the same as the packaging for the other twenty-three, the fact that we did not find these individuals in the area where the twenty-three were found, it would be difficult for us to charge them for that amount of drugs and so for now it will be labeled as found property while we do some investigation to see if we will be able to tie them to the second find.  And so that is where we are right now.  So to answer your question, none of them are assigned to the anti-narcotics unit.”