Tonight, BDF and Police personnel are standing guard over a helicopter found abandoned in extreme southwestern Belize.
Best information is that the helicopter was being used to make a drop of 500 kilos of cocaine in Guatemala at around noon on Monday. But before it could drop its load, the chopper was intercepted by the Guatemalan drug squad, which set chase in the air, and then shot it down near the border. It landed on the Belize side within the adjacency zone, just 30 meters away from the borderline. That's when the pilot is believed to have escaped into the densely forested area, and the Guatemalan drug squad scooped in to take up the over 1,000 pounds of cocaine.
The drugs are now in custody on that side of the sarstoon, but the chopper remains in Belize, and local authorities have contacted their British and American counterparts to see if it can be repaired and possibly flown out of the area. It is a Bell Tong helicopter, that has been completely stripped of all identification markings. There's no human habitation even remotely nearby, so police believe the pilot who may be wounded, could turn up. We say "may be wounded", because a trace of blood was found on the chopper's floor.