High-powered Rifle Missing from B.D.F Camp Belizario

There’s one more high-powered rifle in the streets tonight, after someone removed the weapon from Camp Belizario in Cayo District. The B.D.F is conducting an investigation into the disappearance of the weapon and today they gave the media a briefing. B.D.F. Chief of Staff, Lieutenant Colonel Ricardo Leal says they received the report on Wednesday and immediately dispatched a team to conduct a quick analysis of the situation, but they cannot say when exactly the rifle went missing. So who is the culprit? Leal says no one definitively as yet, but there are several persons of interest that they’re looking at. But Leal did not want to say whether those persons who are responsible for manning the safe where the rifle was locked in are among those persons of interest or whether they have been reprimanded. The persons of interest, he said, are confined, until the investigation is completed.

Ricardo Leal

Lt. Col. Ricardo Leal, Chief of Staff, B.D.F.

“What we can reveal is that a sub-unit of the unit in Camp Belizario was responsible to provide standby duties. The standby duties are normally for a seven-day period. We are not able to ascertain at the moment when actually the weapon go missing, however we do have persons of interest. At the moment, we have them confined. We cannot just send people on suspension because we don’t know the outcome of the investigation.”

Reporter

“So this was an inside job?”

Lt. Col. Ricardo Leal

“For now I would say yes. Normally we would secure it in a different location, so we are trying to ascertain if the weapon was taken from somebody that might have had a key or somebody that would have done something to breach the security, in terms of picking the lock or whatever, but we don’t know at the moment, but we know that it was taken from the actual safe that we have the weapons in.”

Reporter

“Was there anyone who was supposed to have been guarding that room or that weapon?”

Lt. Col. Ricardo Leal

“Yes, yes, yes. Well normally, security is security. There’s no one hundred percent security, but yes, we do have people that are responsible or obligated to secure or take care of these weapons.”