Burnt Drug Plane Remains Found Behind Sunday Wood

For several months, there had not been any report of a drug plane landing in Belize.  That lull, however, was short-lived as local authorities were informed over the weekend that an aircraft had departed from South America en route to Belize. That track was monitored closely until the flight entered Belizean airspace several hours later. The suspected drug plane eventually landed in a remote area of southern Belize and, despite a team of B.D.F. and police officers being deployed to a location behind Sunday Wood Village, may have been successfully offloaded of its illicit cargo.  This afternoon, Commissioner of Police Chester Williams provided additional details to say that the burnt vestiges of the aircraft were spotted from above by a B.D.F. Defender that provided the team on the ground with the actual coordinates.

Chester Williams

Chester Williams, Commissioner of Police

“On Saturday evening or Saturday night, actually, we had received information of a track coming out of South America and that it may be coming our way. Based on that information that we had received, we deployed our troops which comprises of police and B.D.F. to different locations as we would normally do.  Sometime after two a.m. on Saturday night, which would be Sunday morning, we received information from our Mexican counterparts that the plane may have landed in the area of Sunday Wood.  That’s a village in the Toledo District and, again, this area as you would know is one of rugged terrain and our troops that were deployed in the Toledo District had to move from where they were and redeployed to that area.  But again, due to the rugged nature of the terrain, it took the troops hours to get to the location.  By the time we got there, it was sometime after two p.m. on Sunday and that’s because we had to be guided to the location by the Belize Defense Force Air Wing which did a flyover and saw the burnt remains of the plane and directed the troops to the area.  When we got there, the team found a number of bicycles and some other items which we believe were used by those persons involved in the illicit landing of that plane.  We certainly suspect that the cargo onboard the plane was drugs and we have launched a number of operations in the area with a view to see if we can locate the findings.  But again, the area is more close to the Guatemalan border than Belize.  So we believe that the product may have been taken into Guatemala, as opposed to Belize as the area where the plane landed is near the Temash River and the Temash River, if you come out of that, it takes you to the area of Barranco and from there you go through the sea and you’re right into Guatemala. So we believe that the drugs may have taken that route.”