Tonight, 38 year-old Axel Fuentes, a fisherman from Ranchito Village, who was busted with about half a million dollars in cocaine, is out on bail after being imprisoned for 5 weeks.
His attorney, Dickey Bradley, took an application before Justice Herbert Lord today, and asked the court to grant Fuentes bail for the charges against him. After considering the submissions from both Bradley and Crown Counsel Linbert Willis, Justice Lord granted Fuentes bail of $50,000, with the usual conditions that he must hand over his travel documents and report to police weekly until his case is complete.
As we told you, officers from Customs Department, Police Special Patrol Unit and BDF all worked together where they set up a checkpoint between miles 61 and 62 of the Northern Highway on September 18. At around 7:30 p.m., they stopped a Toyota pickup, which was being driven at the time by Fuentes.
They found a few iceboxes filled with fish, which seemed to be in order since Fuentes is a fisherman. One of the iceboxes seemed to be too heavy, despite it being filled with fish, and so, the officers decided to take a closer look. They ended up finding out that the icebox had a false bottom, which they cut open. That's when they found 18 bricks of cocaine to a total weight of 18.89 kilos - or 41 pounds. Fuentes, who is a Guatemalan/Belizean, was charged with drug trafficking.
|
