7 News Belize

Island Cops Bust Half A Mill In Cocaine
posted (January 16, 2017)
So, while that was the grenade found on Southside Belize City, Island cops made a major bust of 25 parcels of cocaine on San Pedro. That's a total of 26 kilos or 57.5 pounds. The police found it, not up the north coast of San Pedro, famous for its wet drops, but at the south of the island. According to a police press release, police responded to information received of sack on the beach 4 miles south of San Pedro Town. Police say the parcels each weighing between 2.29 and 2.35 pounds - which is a little over a kilo - were found in a sack. They say no one was in the area and it was labeled as found property.

The police have refused to share any other information on it, but when we asked San Pedro's Mayor about the drug bust, he had nothing but praise for the officers who acted on good intelligence.

Danny Guerrero, Mayor - San Pedro
"Well yes, I think it was an excellent job down by the police first on San Pedro. I think they detect it on time. Nobody was caught with it. It was still probably on the shores. It was 25 kilos and I think the communication that the council, myself, have with the police department is excellent and is very healthy. We deal with them a lot. We are always helping the department and when you hear this in the news, it sounds good, but also it has its bad part. Because when you hear 25 kilos of cocaine on the island, but its drifting. It's beyond our control. This thing comes way from the ocean. So it drifts on the entire shorelines and the playadores are always alive for that. This time the police is ahead of them."

"So, it's good and definitely we are trying to put more cameras and we are trying to work with more of the hoteliers and the dive shops to put an eye on things like this and we always encourage tour guides, if they see something like that to report it to the police or report it to the council, so we move on on a positive manner, instead of the drugs ending up in the other hands where it would probably sell on the streets."

"San Pedro I think is doing very good when it comes to crime and all those things. I think the police is doing an excellent job. We are very connected with all the different NGOs and the business community. We have a project that we started with cameras with all the businesses and that will be energized actually because of this and crimes that happens on the street. We are actually encouraging - I will try to make an amendment to the trade licensing act if it's possible, if the government accepts that every single trade license establishment - that will be one of the requirements, to put a camera outside."

The estimated street value of that drug seizure in Belize is between 525 and 675 thousand dollars - since a kilo sells for about 25 to 35 thousand dollars. It sells for many multiples of that value once it gets to the US.

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