Minister Musa Highlights Success in Belize’s Fight Against Drug Trade

Minister of Home Affairs Kareem Musa says police country-wide have seen major success in the war against drugs. Recently, the theft of an aircraft in Placencia, suspected to have been carried out by narco-traffickers, raised questions as to whether organized criminals had shifted their focus to the south. In previous months, the government allocated a million dollars to fight the infiltration of Mexican crime elements in the north. Musa was asked if the recent incident indicated that narco-traffickers were now moving operations to the south. However, he explained that compared to previous years the country has seen a decrease in activities related to the trans-national drug trade.

Kareem Musa, Minister of Home Affairs: “As of this year you might have noticed that there is an overall reduction in the number of plane landings whether in the north or whether in the south. I know that last year we had a number of landings in the south in the Toledo district. This year there has been a reduction and so I can’t say necessarily that is the conclusion we can draw at this time but definitely the joint operations that we have up in the north in the Blue Creek area have proven very effective and there is a lot more open spaces in the south of our country in the rainforest, in the jungle and so those are areas that are harder to cover but it’s certainly something that both the military and the police are looking at to ensure that we also secure those areas from plain landings.”

Musa also noted that the remote areas of the south have long been exploited by drug traffickers but says that strategic military operations have reduced their presence.