It was parked at the Benque Viejo-Melchor border crossing, in the area known as No-Man's-Land on Tuesday and left there. And then customs and police noticed that the Mexican license plates had been removed.

So, just before noon today they moved to impound the pickup with a tow-truck - and that set off a firestorm of protest from vested interests on the Guatemalan side of the border - including the woman who claims that she owns the truck - along with taxi drivers and money changers.

They claimed that the truck was parked in Guatemalan territory - and they called police on that side of the border to get it back. Armed Guatemalan Civil Police responded - with vehicles, on the Belize side of the border!

It could have escalated into a major incident, but fortunately, calmer heads prevailed and the Officer Commanding from Benque Viejo, Superintendent Ralph Moody called his counterpart in Melchor to demonstrate to him that the vehicle was in Belize, and that the person claiming to be the owner was not.

And that's because the owner is nowhere to be found - likely because the pickup was stolen. That is confirmed by the fact that the VIN number has been tampered with - and the vehicle is registered to someone in Chetumal. You can see the VIN number in this picture where they have tried to change the "P" into a "B".

It came to Belize through the northern border and then was left off to the side at the western border - probably until a stolen vehicle ring or rings could make arrangements to slip it into Melchor.

But that didn't happen - and we understand death threats have been made against the Belizean tow truck owner who pulled it across. And then, this afternoon at 2:00 pm, a detachment of 15 BDF soldiers was deployed to the border - based on the report they got that some kind of skirmish had broken out.

There was no skirmish, but because of the aggressive response of Guatemalan money changers and taxi drivers -briefly backed up by their police - it may have seemed that way.

Meanwhile, the pickup is will be sent to customs impound in Belize City.