Police Officer Investigated for Role in Cayo Drug Plane Landing

A police officer has been detained for allegedly facilitating the landing of a suspected drug plane last week in the Cayo District. On Friday morning, a farmer in Frank’s Eddy Village found a single-engine aircraft along a dirt road in the community. Police were informed and discovered that the aircraft had landed sometime before midnight.  With the plane gutted, it is the suspicion of investigators that the vessel transported narcotics into Belize. This morning, Commissioner of Police Chester Williams explained that the police’s investigation so far has led them to believe that a policewoman aided the main suspect. 

Chester Williams, Commissioner of Police: “A search of the aircraft revealed nothing but the seats were removed. The back seats were removed. The only two seats were that of the pilots. Searches were conducted in the area. Police found some lights that we believe were used to align the landing strip for the plane along with other few items that we believe were used in facilitating the plane landing. We are still trying to ascertain exactly what cargo came on that plane, but as usual we suspect that it could be cocaine. We are looking for one individual likewise who we believe may be able to provide some information to us as it relates to that plane landing. I can also say to you, I don’t want to hide nothing, say to you that we had detained a police officer, a female police officer because we believe that she facilitated a person, the person who we believe landed that aircraft in, signing in at the police station outside the hours stipulated by the court. This person is on bail for a previous plane landing and as a condition to his bail he was ordered to report or to sign in to the Belmopan police station every Friday between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. Surprisingly the same night the plane landed he came to sign in at the Belmopan police station after 12 midnight that would be around the same time the plane would be landing. And this female police officer facilitated him to the extent that she took the diary from inside the station and took it outside of the station for him to sign. That for us is an egregious breach. I’m not going to say that she is involved in the plane landing but her actions in facilitating this individual, knowing ways to have signed in at that particular moment is extremely questionable. And so, Professional Standard Branch is looking at that matter and we expect that charges will be levied against her for breach of our internal policies.”

Williams says that the department will be reaching out to the Belize Joint Intelligence Operations Center (JIOC) to find out why the country’s radar system did not detect the aircraft.

Chester Williams, Commissioner of Police: “That’s a matter that we’re looking at. JIAC would be in a better position to explain why they were unable to provide to us any tracking on that particular night in question. As you would know we’re not the ones who work or manage JIAC. We would normally be fed with information coming out of JIAC as it relates to the illicit tracking and then once we get those informations then we would then activate our operational teams to go into different areas that we would anticipate the plane may likely land. That’s a directive that the plane be destroyed. Again, it’s the trend that we do now instead of putting these planes out for auction and sold to the highest bidder. It’s a policy now that we destroy them so as not to have these planes reused. We have seen instances before where the planes were auctioned off and then next thing we know the planes end up right back in Belize again with another set of cargo so to eliminate that from happening these are aircraft are destroyed on spot.”

Commissioner Williams noted that the last confirmed drug plane to land in the country was in December 2023 in Corazon Creek, Toledo District.