Never before has a box of contraband car parts caused such a ruckus. As we've been reporting, on Sunday a BDF patrol saw a pair of smugglers with a box of contraband walking along the Mopan River. The smugglers ran over to Guatemala but the patrol impounded the box which contained car parts including four water pumps, four fuel filters, 2 headlights and other accessories valued at about three thousand dollars.
No big deal really until the BDF tried to take the contraband into Customs on Monday morning. Police intercepted the BDF patrol and it culminated in a tense, armed standoff at the Benque Viejo police station. That ended with the Police taking the contraband items by force form the BDF. Inspector Mai who heads the Benque formation told us they needed it in connection with an ongoing investigation.
But the customs law, Chapter 49 Section 89, says specifically that any contraband confiscated by the Police or BDF has to be taken as soon as possible to the nearest customs house.
After the whole standoff thing blew over, Customs had to remind police of that law and, with that, yesterday the goods were taken from the Benque Police Station back to Customs where they are impounded at this hour. That should be the end of it, except the BDF says that there is an ongoing investigation to see exactly what went wrong.
