An international vessel carrying the Belizean flag has been found with 10,000 pounds of cocaine.
Usually news of that size of bust comes from international sources, but today Belize's International Ship Registry IMMARBE sent out a release detailing the bust. On May 5th of this year, a fishing vessel called "Africa 1" paid the required U.S. $1,500 to fly the Belize flag. But the registration was only provisional because the ship had not installed the IMMARSAT monitoring system, which allows IMMARBE to monitor and regulate the boats wherever they are in international waters.
Well it seems "Africa 1" never got the tracking system because it was moving illicit cargo. On June 25, Spanish authorities contacted the Belize Joint Intelligence Coordinating center (JICC) requesting permission to board and search the "Africa 1" in international waters. JICC contacted IMMARBE which gave the go ahead. That search turned up 4,500 kilos of cocaine, or 9,900 pounds. The crew has been detained in Spain and IMMARBE has de-registered the vessel and hopes to also assess fines for violating the high seas fishing act.
Currently, 211 licenses have been sold to international vessels to carry the Belize flag. After numerous drug trafficking embarrassments and violations in past years, the IMMARSAT tracking system was made Mandatory and it has resulted in far fewer incidents.