He was the boss of the George Street crew, and a powerful player in Belize's underworld, until he was, in the words of one PUP minister, "hustled out of the country," and handed over to the United States law enforcement authorities. Well over a year has passed since then and today it was announced from the New York office of the U.S. attorney that George Herbert has been convicted of drug trafficking charges in a New York courtroom.
Herbert was charged with conspiring to import 12 tons of cocaine into the United States between March 2001 and August of 2003. Evidence presented by the U.S. attorney showed that Herbert was enlisted by an un-named corrupt Belizean government official working with Mexico's Juarez cartel to smuggle cocaine from Colombia to Mexico, assisted by, "armed members of the George Street crew." Herbert was convicted on four counts of cocaine importation, and each count carries a mandatory 10 year sentence, and a maximum sentence of life imprisonment. He will be sentenced in March of next year.
Juarez Cartel bosses Jorge Manuel Teyer who is alleged to have been Herbert's accomplice, pleaded guilty and was sentenced to two terms of 38 years. The man U.S. authorities say was their Colombia contact, Mauricio Ruda-Alavarez was found murdered in a car trunk in October of 2002. Interestingly, evidence at the trial showed that two months before his murder, Ruda-Alvarez had been the one behind the failed attempt to kidnap Herbert, which the U.S. authorities say was over a shipment of cocaine Herbert had stolen.
And while he's been maligned in the U.S. courts, Herbert's rights as a Belizean citizen were upheld by the Supreme Court of Belize which found that he had been unlawfully kidnapped by the government for handover to U.S. authorities. His family was awarded damages and government was ordered to give an undertaking to have him returned to Belize an order which, by all outward appearances, has been ignored, or at best, feebly followed.