It was headline news back on September 9, 2019 when police made a major drug bust off mile 7 on the Coastal Road. They intercept a drug plane which landed off the Coastal Road. It was carrying almost 3,000 pounds of cocaine. They got the plane, the drugs and the personal - 8 men from Ecuador, Honduras and Mexico, allegedly involved in the landing or piloting the aircraft.
But, 16 months later, seven of eight defendants saw their charges dropped based on instructions from the DPP's office, due to insufficient evidence. And we thought that was the end of that.
But, the Americans seem to have had plenty of evidence. And we learned yesterday that one of the men, Honduran Carlos Humberto Henriquez Gomez was yesterday sentenced to over 18 years in prison for participating in an international drug trafficking conspiracy.
A release from the US Department of Justice says quote, "Working with Belizean authorities, the Justice Department dismantled a major international drug trafficking operation before more than a ton of cocaine could be transported internationally…A ton of cocaine was stopped before it could ever reach our streets, and a key player in that operation will now spend years behind bars."
A press release says that Henriquez Gomez was a member of a cartel that used a U.S.-registered aircraft to transport more than a ton of cocaine from Venezuela to Belize.
They say he played a key role in planning and carrying out the operation. "In 2018, he traveled to Belize to inspect a clandestine airstrip for suitability to land a narcotics-laden aircraft. In 2019, he returned to prepare the airstrip for arrival, then assisted in offloading the cocaine for transport within Belize."
