And while that is a matter of public interest that came up - today's quick press briefing from the Compol was set up to talk about the drug plane that landed in the Toledo District on Saturday night or Sunday morning.
The Beechcraft King Air 90 Aircraft was photographed by the BDF on a clear strip of land in a southern area of forest near Sundaywood Village in Toledo.
On Monday police couldn't offer much information with the Commissioner saying only that quote: "due to security reasons for our troops in the area I am unable to facilitate your request at this time."
But today that heightened level of security seemed to have come down just a bit and COMPOL Williams was able to offer a clearer assessment of the situation on the ground.
Chester Williams, Commissioner of Police
"On Saturday evening or Saturday night, actually, we had received information of a track coming out of South America and that it may be coming our way. Based on that information that we had received, we deployed our troops which comprises of police and B.D.F. to different locations as we would normally do. Sometime after 2a.m. on Saturday night, which would be Sunday morning, we received information from our Mexican counterparts that the plane may have landed in the area of Sunday Wood. That's a village in the Toledo District and, again, this area as you would know is one of rugged terrain and our troops that were deployed in the Toledo District had to move from where they were and redeployed to that area. But again, due to the rugged nature of the terrain, it took the troops hours to get to the location. By the time we got there, it was sometime after 2p.m. on Sunday and that's because we had to be guided to the location by the Belize Defense Force Air Wing which did a flyover and saw the burnt remains of the plane and directed the troops to the area. When we got there, the team found a number of bicycles and some other items which we believe were used by those persons involved in the illicit landing of that plane. We certainly suspect that the cargo onboard the plane was drugs and we have launched a number of operations in the area with a view to see if we can locate the findings. But again, the area is more close to the Guatemalan border than Belize. So we believe that the product may have been taken into Guatemala, as opposed to Belize as the area where the plane landed is near the Temash River and the Temash River, if you come out of that, it takes you to the area of Barranco and from there you go through the sea and you're right into Guatemala. So we believe that the drugs may have taken that route. Certainly, we do believe that the bicycles was the mode of transportation use by those who were engaged in the landing of the plane. Again, vehicles could not reach the location because of the rugged terrain, but bicycles can manoeuvre the small picados and could have gotten to the location and so we believe that those involved use bicycles to get to the location. We do maintain our presence in the area conducting searches, but at this time we have not been able to come up with anything."
We also asked the commissioner about the possible involvement of villagers living nearby. He said, quote: "It can be assumed."
