Over 1,800 pounds of cocaine turned to ash and smoke today during a routine drug destruction. These were the bales confiscated after the drug plane landed on the Southern highway on November 4th. It is customary for the police to take the drugs to an undisclosed location to burn them and, usually, it's The Commander Ops, ACP Marco Vidal who leads the operation. But since his team was implicated in this plane landing, the new Commander Ops ACP Alford Grinage took over today. The convoy left Belize City as the sun rose this morning and was finished before midday. Courtney Menzies caught up with them at that location and has this story.
A convoy of police officers departed the Racoon Street Police Station at 5:45am today en route to an undisclosed location, where over eighteen hundred pounds of cocaine that were found in Bladen Village on November 4th went up in smoke.
Usually, the convoy leaves later in the morning, and the media gets to tag along. But this time, the Operations Commander, ACP Alford Grinage, said the faster they got rid of the drugs, the better.
ACP Alford Grinage, Operations Commander
"The drugs was processed by the scenes of crime and the narcotic officers; they were placed at an undisclosed location and so today we're here for destruction."
"It takes a lot of man power to have these drugs secured and so the earlier we destroy it, and we got the ok from the magistrate court, so we proceeded to destroy it immediately."
"We were looking at the weather, we wanted to beat the weather, we know the weather is unforgiving these days, we were trying to beat it that's why we left early this morning."
And once the drugs get to the secret location, they follow a process before each parcel is tossed into a raging fire.
ACP Alford Grinage, Operations Commander
"A total of 23 bales, which is total to 700 parcels that is being destroyed today. The weight is 822.46 kilograms."
Courtney Menzies:
"And is that all the drugs that were found on the scene because I remember the commissioner saying it was 25 bales?"
ACP Alford Grinage, Operations Commander
"Yes ma'am, that's all the drugs that was found."
"We have personnel from the forensic department, we have from the magistrate, we have a JP, we have people from the drug enforcement here, along with prosecution branch. Also we have the arresting officer that is here. The process is that the same drugs that we recover, we escorted from the location to this undisclosed location where each parcel, samples has been taken, after which it has been thrown into the fire and destroyed after it is confirmed that it is the same product that is being destroyed. We want the product to burn completely so we chop it in half so that it's easier to burn."
It's a routine process that's been done countless times before, but this time, officers from an elite unit were charged for allegedly facilitating the drug plane. We asked ACP Grinage if this affected the procedure since it could potentially be a security breach.
Courtney Menzies:
"I know you guys don't reveal the location of where you're burning the drugs but are you concerned that because officers from the same unit that responds to the drug plane, they were implicate in this latest landing, aren't you concerned that they may have already told your secrets to the other narcos?"
ACP Alford Grinage, Operations Commander
"No, not necessarily, I must make some correction there, the officers that was implicated in this drug busts, they don't necessarily go on these drug operations, they are not those officers that we deploy, but nevertheless we have enough security here so even if the narcos would have known that we are here we are well equipped to deal with the situation."
The drug destruction began at 8am and ACP Grinage said they had expected to leave the site around 11am.
While the ComPol originally said that 25 bales of cocaine was found in total, the police report issued today clarifies that 21 bales were found the night of the plane landing. We know that two more bales were found the weekend after, bringing the count to 23 rather than 25.
