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And that's why the Commissioner of police held a press conference today in Belmopan. Cherisse Halsall reports:

Before Dawn on Sunday another plane, this time a Hawker Siddeley 125, was abandoned in the Blue Creek area of Orange Walk.

Chester Williams, COMPOL
"Yesterday morning police visited the Blue Creek area near the Mexican border where they came across one Hawker jet that was parked on a makeshift airstrip. Police conducted a search of the plane and nothing was found therein. Searches were conducted within the area where the plane was located and again nothing was found."

And while the public has expressed its outrage at drug cartels using Belizean roads as airstrips to move huge drug cargos. The COMPOL stressed that his department is doing all it can:

Chester Williams, COMPOL
"We're doing what we can with the resources that we have and we'll continue to do just that. We had tracks again last night and we deployed and we believe that we were able to prevent them from landing so we have been doing a lot in preventing and some will land and if one lands it is one too much."

"When we compare last year, last year around this time we have 12 confirmed landings. This time this year we have 7 confirmed landings so our efforts have been able to deter many of these planes from landing."

21 days ago another plane was found abandoned in the Blue Creek area. On that occasion, Mexican police found a huge stash of drugs, weapons, and 2 vehicles on their side of the border in the town of Tomas Garrido Canabal, Quintana Roo.

Police have once again reached out to their Mexican counterparts with information surrounding this narco-jet, hoping for another lucky find.

Chester Williams, COMPOL
"I don't think this one had any seats in it and yes the previous one had seats again the previous one had a huge or a larger cargo area. So probably that was where the drugs were kept or were brought in."

"We believe that the plane may have brought in drugs and that the drugs may have been taken over the mexican side. We had since communicated with our Mexican counterparts to be our lookout on the other side of the border. To see if they would be able to intercept the cargo of the plane. Now just as the public are we are also concerned the landings of these planes within our borders but this is a regional thing that law enforcement agencies are dealing with. We know last night Nicaragua also intercepted a plane. They have had instances I Think mexico also got one last night, a smaller type plane and we know the problem also exists in Costa Rica, Guatemala and so it's something that the entire region is dealing with."

But the COMPOL stresses that policing this type of highly organized, well funded criminal activity is challenging.

Chester Williams, COMPOL
"The truth is it is not easy for us the resources is lacking I guess you all have read the release issued by the Minister yesterday where he outlined basically some of the challenges that we are facing but despite the fact that the resources is lacking in terms of a secondary radar we still do our utmost best to try and intercept these planes when they come into our air space. Yes we wish we could have intercepted more on that night in question. Saturday night we were actually monitoring four tracks at the same time that left out of Venezuela and in the absence of direct intelligence as to where exactly the plane was going to land we have to find a way to deploy officers in different strategic locations across the country and it's a challenge."

And while catching the bad guys is extremely high priority COMPOL Willams says that he also puts a high priority on the safety of the officers who are often deploy to deal with narcotrafficking.

Chester Williams, COMPOL
"If the officer gets a call at the station that a plane is about to land we don't expect a two or three man patrol to go and intercept a plane that's like sending our officers to commit suicide. So there are a number of things that needs to be done to mobilize a team that is well fitted to be able to go into combat should the need arise in intercepting a plane because you know that these people are not just going to surrender their drugs to the police. They are surely going to have a fight with the police and we don't want to have our officers alone with small 38 or 39 millimeter going up against drug cartels with machine guns that will be like sending them to commit suicide so we have to mobilize the BDF for the most part we get ----members of the special patrol unit and members of the anti narcotics unit and that is the team that we normally put togther to be able to respond."

"And we did that Saturday night leading into Sunday morning. We had our officers deployed all over the place. Hoping that the plane would have landed at one of the locations where the officers were but again it went into the Blue Creek area which is closer to the mexican border and so we will have to look to see how we can re-strategize until we can get the resources we need to be more direct and I can tell you that even with the resources in Mexico and Guatemala they have missed a lot too."

As it stands, GOB has amassed a small fleet of abandoned drug planes including 2 HS 125s - which is the one found on Sunday, 2 Jets, 2 King Airs, 2 Cessna 210s, and 1 piper. With new additions coming in regularly there may soon be limited space in the hangars currently housing the aircraft. We are told they are currently up for sale but without much success.