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Cops Found 50 Pounds of Cocaine Lying on the Beach
posted (March 18, 2019)

Turning to news out of San Pedro Town, police made a major cocaine bust. 

They found 52 pounds of cocaine just lying on the beach on Northern Ambergris Caye - an area famous for its wet drops and cocaine-related killings. 

Yesterday afternoon, San Pedro Police and officers of the Gang Suppression Unit went to an area 2 miles north of Boca Del Rio Park, where they found a white crocus sack on the beach with 24 packages inside. Those packages, seen here, were opened, and the officers found they suspect to be cocaine.

Police Commissioner Chester Williams discussed the discovery with the media at press briefing today, and he told us that samples have been sent for testing to confirm it the substance is cocaine:

Chester Williams - Commissioner of Police
"Yesterday, sometime in the afternoon, police were called to some area in Northern Ambergris Caye, where searches were conducted, and the search yielded 20 parcels of what we suspected to be cocaine. The parcels were taken to the San Pedro Town Police station, where samples taken from each of them. Those samples were sent to the lab today for testing to verify if in fact the contents of those parcels are indeed cocaine. The officer commanding San Pedro was also tasked to ensure that the 20 parcels were brought into Belize City. So, we currently have them in Belize City now, and once the testing is done, and we receive the confirmation, then we’re going to move to destruction. We do not want to keep them in our custody for too long. At the end of the day, I know that the public have been very sceptical of the police, but I can assure the Belizean people that whatever was turned in, and what we reported, is exactly what we found. And we are ensuring that we do everything that needs to be done, to prevent any tampering of those suspected cocaine. After the drugs was weighed, it weighed just around 21 kilograms. So, it’s a very good find. I commend the officers who were involved, which includes officers from the Gang Suppression Unit, and the San Pedro detachment for the good work that they did, which resulted in the removal of these drugs off the street. We maintain operational presence in San Pedro. We know that we have received information of some wet drop, and once those drugs reaches the hands of criminals or even persons who may not want to be criminals, it can have deadly consequences."

Reporter
"Do you believe that this is part of a larger drop?"

Chester Williams
"Well, we have to look at it that way. I don’t think that anybody will we just drop 20 kilos of cocaine somewhere. More than likely, yes, it’s a part of a larger wet drop, and hence the reason why I’ve said that we maintain our operational presence there."

Reporter
"It’s well known that Northern Ambergris Caye is a location where what are known as “Playadoresâ€￾ operate. Are you satisfied that your officers beat these persons to this particular cargo?"

Chester Williams
"Well, we do believe that someone had found it, and they had stashed it. And we found their stash. Yes, whenever you hear of wet drops, you would normally see that Northern San Pedro becomes very active with gang members and drug dealers walking the beach, looking to see if they’ll be able to find any. So, we’ll continue our efforts in those areas to see how we can minimize the occurrence of these activities."

Police intend to destroy these packages once tests are done.  If it is cocaine, the estimated street value of each of these packages is $25,000 dollars - putting the value of the catch at half a million Belize dollars.

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