Tonight, three lawmen are detained after they were caught allegedly transporting two bales of cocaine away from a drug plane crash site.
The plane, which entered Belizean airspace at about 3:30 a.m. would eventually make three circles over the Hill Bank area before it crash-landed near Lemonal.
And this afternoon our Courtney Menzies went trekking through that rough terrain to find the remains of the plane. Here's what she found at the scene and a re-cap of the action that went before. She and Cherisse Halsall have team coverage:
It turned out to be a total of 9 men, three lawmen, and six civilians, they were all allegedly involved in the logistics for landing this plane and moving its illicit cargo.
Today that twin-engine plane lay in ruin near Lemonal village in Central Belize - an 4 mile hike across a private farm on a road that was impassable to many.
We got a recap of last night's action from Commissioner of Police Chester Williams:
Chester Williams, Commissioner of Police
"The officers said that about 20 minutes after landing they saw a huge flame from the area where the suspect aircraft had landed and a few minutes later they saw a boat in the lagoon heading west, the boat was moving at very high speed and so we were unable to catch that boat but minutes later another boat was seen, a smaller vessel this time was seen coming from the same direction where they had seen the plane go down, and the officers were able to take possession of a boat that was in the hill bank area and went out in the lagoon and they were able to capture the second boat, inside that boat were nine men and a search thereof yielded two bales of what we believe to be cocaine. The individuals and the boat were taken to the dock where we learned the names of the persons to be one Tyrell Talbert assigned to a Special Patrol unit (S.P.U.), one Byron Claire police constable assigned to the canine unit, and I think one Steve Roland I think that's the name, who is a Lance Corporal in the Belize Defense Force, we also had in that vessel Dwight Mcfazden, we have another man Claire who is the father of P.C. Claire and some other individuals there were a nine as I said."
All of the lawmen involved are destined for interdiction:
Chester Williams, Commissioner of Police
"They were armed, two of them had shotguns and one had a 9-millimeter pistol for which they have a license and again as a part of the process, it is my intention to revoke those gun licenses."
And while the culprits have been caught the same can't be said for the majority of the cargo.
Chester Williams, Commissioner of Police
"We do believe that it may still be in the country. We still have a search team out in the area canvassing the lagoon, hopefully, if it is that the boat is still in the country we will be able to find it."
