Police have struck at the heart of one of the city's deadliest gangs. Yesterday the uncovered PIV's stash spot and hideout - which is on an island off the coast of Belize City.
Three persons - including the man considered the gang's co-leader, Edwin Drive Flowers were on the island where police found a gun and drugs. A larger stash of weaponry was found on an adjoining caye. Tonight it stands as one of the biggest busts of a gang stash spot in memory. The commissioner gave us a briefing two hours ago:
Chester Williams, Commissioner of Police
"Searches were conducted on that island and the search led to the discovery of 12,000 grams of cannabis. It was parcelled off in a number of parcels and 2,300 grams of cocaine that was in two separate kilo-sized parcels and one 2-2-3 rifle."
"On the island police also found three individuals from the PIV area. Those persons and the drugs and firearm were brought to Belize City for processing and the three individuals have since been arrested and charge for drug trafficking and for keeping unlicensed firearm."
"We went and conducted searches on two other islands which we believe the PIV gang members have some connection to and on one of those islands we found one M4 carbine rifle, one assault 5.7 calibre rifle, one 22 rifle, one.40 calibre handgun and one 9mm handgun. So, a total of five firearms were found, three of which are rifles and two handguns. No one was on that island and so those items will be deposited as found property."
Jules Vasquez
"Speak to us about the firearms, are they clean or were they stolen? We know the M4 carbine is a military-grade rifle."
Chester Williams, Commissioner of Police
"We're still doing our checks to verify if those firearms are stolen. I don't think the m4 Carbine, unless it's if it was stolen from the military, would stolen neither would the 5.7 rifle."
"The handgun again 40 caliber is not usually licensed and nine millimeter is usually licensed so we'll be running some checks."
Jules Vasquez
"Did the events, did the murder of the young man Jigga on Monday night, did that trigger an increased seriousness from the police to say you know what, we will strike them and we will strike them hard."
Chester Williams, Commissioner of Police
"Certainly Jules, with the amount of shootings that we have seen where PIV members are implicated. I had to adapt your style and use a few explicit to be able to make people understand that we need to find these members from P.I.V. and send them to prison under the S.O.E. Just like you, we have heard of an island that we believe was used by, was being used by PIV. But we had visited that island before and nothing was there. This one that found this particular individual on is different than the one we've heard of before. So it's a totally different island than what we heard of before."
Jules Vasquez
"Does the island have an owner?"
Chester Williams, Commissioner of Police
"At this time we will have to do the necessary research to ascertain who is the owner of the island."
"I believe that when they will get their shipment of drugs it will be taken to the island and then they would bring from the Island to the city in smaller quantity."
Jules Vasquez
"Do you feel that you all have struck at the heart of one of most powerful gangs and will this have, do you believe, a meaningful effect on mitigating violence in the city?"
Chester Williams, Commissioner of Police
"Well I would hope that it it will. I am not going to be naive to think that this is all the firepower that they have. We still believe that we have additional firepower. That's the reason why we had gone on to other islands, we believe they may have some items concealed."
"We will continue to work and develop our information and certainly we will go after them again and see what else we can retrieve."
