Securing Belize’s Airspace

Florencio Marin Jr.

Minister of Defence and Border Security Florencio Marin Junior was asked for comment on this year’s first drug plane bust. The joint intelligence agency tracks several many drug planes daily, but this one was the first to intercept Belizean law enforcement. Minister Marin congratulated the officers for a job well done and says that the government is working to improve air assets to secure Belize’s air space.

Florencio Marin Jr., Minister of Defence and Border Security

“The investigation is ongoing so my comments will be very limited but I just want to congratulate the teams who were able to successfully interdict the drugs that came in. I do have to be limited in my comments because it is ongoing at the moment as we speak.  I want to assure you we will fully cooperate with all investigations necessary and let the chips where they may.”

Hipolito Novelo

“Are you able to confirm whether illicit cargo retrieved from the area?”

Florencio Marin Jr.

“Yes we heard some bales were recovered.”

Hipolito Novelo

“Cocaine.”

Florencio Marin Jr.

“Yes that is what I heard.”

Hipolito Novelo

“We know about the interdiction and interception of drug plans, but what about prevention because they keep coming, they keep landing?”

Florencio Marin Jr.

“Yes. We do have our air assets that are helpful in it. Again those are things we don’t want to disclose publicly and we are working on improving our assets as well but again for operational reasons we don’t comment on those.”

We’ll have more on the drug plane later in this newscast.