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On Monday at 9:30 Customs officers say they were chasing down Edgar Patt - who is said to be a relative of UDP Corozal North area representative Hugo Patt - when Edgar ran off the road and into a lamp-post. Customs says he was coming form an illegal crossing called "Estero" and they say they found him trying to hide his stash in a cane field. Customs took possession of the items and claim that a throng of villagers started to hurl stones at them, and so they called in police for backup. The commander of operations seemed to think it unremarkable.

ACP Edward Broaster
"The police officers intercepted a white vehicle with twenty-five cases of beer and turned them over to customs. I don't have the particulars of the driver."

Jules Vasquez, reporter
"Was there any, we had heard that there was a confrontation with law enforcement because, as we know, a lot of times these contraband smugglers have people who protect them because, you know, it's an entire underground system. Did law enforcement report that they had any crowds to quell or anything like that?"

ACP Edward Broaster
"I did not get any report of that nature."

But for customs it was a big deal and they wanted to send a message so they didn't offer Patt to settle out of court, they instead took him to court. He was charged with carrying unaccustomed goods valued at one thousand dollars.

Now usually a persons is assessed three time the value, but Customs went for the maximum fine of 20 thousand dollars. He pleaded not guilty and is out on six thousand dollars bail.

And that's not the end of it. Customs also wants to charge others in the crowd who were throwing rocks and beer bottles for obstruction.

It got so bad at one stage, that Customs claims a tractor came and stole Pat's vehicle that they were trying to impound. Customs and police got information where the vehicle was and took it back. They claims they had to face down a crowd with machetes.