AmbergrisCaye.com Home Forums Belize by District Belize District Drug Plane Lands Near Crooked Tree, Cargo Gone

Tonight the police department has officers fanned out across the Orange Walk District trying to find close to a suspected tonne of cocaine that landed on a drug jet very early this morning.

Police have hopes of making some arrest because the plane landing took place far from the border, about 3 miles behind Crooked Tree village.

That's where our news team found it at the end of a winding Picado road. Charisse Halsall has more:

This Sabreliner jet landed here at about 2:00 AM this morning. It was being tracked closely but went under the area in this general area. Police and BDF secure the location early this morning, but by then the drugs were long gone. Experts say the drug traffickers would stuff a jet like this with over 2,000 pounds of cocaine.

And the illicit aircraft had guidance to land from these improvised pyres at the edge of the picado road turned runway. The pyres were assembled, presumably, to take the place of runway lights placed to indicate the location of the runway.

And because safety comes first even in an international drug operation there was a fire extinguisher on hand in case anything went wrong. But it seems to have gone perfectly, at least for the Narcos.

These tire tracks show that they hightailed it out of there with every bit of their cargo in tow. Residents who preferred to appear off camera say that a convoy of three vehicles went down the Backland road at night and re-emerged in the early morning and and drove right back out just the way they came. And - according to eyewitnesses - it wouldn't be until 15 to 30 minutes later that the cops headed toward the plane, just missing them.

Sharmaine Tillett, Resident of Crooked Tree
"We saw the police and I don't know if they are soldiers or what I don't know but they passed for real between 9 and 10, but late, late last night we heard the plane for real last night, late late it made some circles around the village."

The location being quite far from the Mexican border, police are scrambling to find the drugs and detain the subjects that they believe are still in the Orange Walk district.

But by this afternoon there were no cops in this area, just this group of BDF soldiers standing guard.

Cherisse Halsall:
"Were you scared knowing that a plane had landed there before?"

Sharmaine Tillett, Resident of Crooked Tree
"Well, this is more than one time so we know, you know exactly what will happen."

Radio Personality Steve Groovemaster Perriot is a resident of the village and a radio show host who's in tune with village gossip. He says that the Backlanding wilderness is a wilderness no more.

Steve "Groovemaster" Perriot, Resident of Crooked Tree
"It's very busy back there, we don't know why Crooked Tree seems to be one of the places where they want to land. I personally don't know much about blackburn back there but I know it's very busy nowadays, there's a lot of people back there nowadays."

Cherisse Halsall:
"Would you say that the police were here quite quickly?"

Steve "Groovemaster" Perriot, Resident of Crooked Tree
"Well, as far as I know, they were, as far as I know, they were. Right now, there are policemen back there and I think that by now its very hard to actually catch them, they've been doing this so long, the drug smugglers that there is a routine, so unless we have word beforehand that they are coming, unless we are tracking them, I think it's going to be very tricky just to be there when they land. And apparently, it seems like we have a nice runway in the back now, maybe the P.G.I.A. could use it."

And the international airport isn't likely to get around to that anytime soon. It will likely count this jet among its "to be auctioned" collection very soon.

From Backlanding near Crooked Tree, Cherisse Halsall 7News.

This is the first confirmed drug plane landing to be declared in 2022, the other illegal plane landing on January 12th wasn't confirmed to be a drug plane.

The Commissioner of police has promised a full briefing on this plane landing in the morning - which we'll have for you on tomorrow's newscast.

Channel 7

Another Drug Plane Crash Lands in Northern Belize

Police have confirmed a report that a drug plane crash-landed during the night, north of Belize City. While Commissioner of Police, Chester Williams has indicated he won’t divulge any information until security forces have completed their forensics gathering from the area, News Five has learned that the plane landed several miles behind the Blackburn area, bordering the Belize and Orange Walk Districts. It took our news team through some rugged roads until we found someone who said he was among a group that was in the area when they heard the plane crash land and saw at least one vehicle approach it in the distance. He did not want to be identified.

Voice of: Hunter

"We mi deh eena the jungle, me and two ah mi friends, about round little after twelve when we hear this big aircraft di circle every minute. Ih circle bout half an hour to an hour and constantly dig oh higher and lower. Soh we dih deh and we put wi headlight pahn ah and we di flash pahn ah and di circle round and round it over Crooked Tree, back fig oh by Grass Piece, goh back by Firebunand come back to Crab Catcher and dehn place deh. And I mi think the authorities dehn wudda mi try get - do something but the authority dehn - ah nuh know if dehn lack ah interest or lack ah manpower or something."

Marion Ali

"Ok, you said you were flashing lights on the plane. Did you happen to see what kind of plane it was?"

Voice of: Hunter

"No, it was pretty high but we know definitely it was a drug plane. We have knowledge of it."

Marion Ali

"You couldn't see if it was a twin engine, a single engine?"

Voice of: Hunter

"I know it's a jet according to the sound that it makes, you know that whistling sound that a jet engine makes, we know it's not a small plane. So we know it's a very huge plane, but the plane was with no lights, or nothing, just di circle round, circle round."

Marion Ali

"And after half an hour, what did you hear?"

Voice of: Hunter

"We hear when it gone down. Physically when it hit the ground you hear bang from the distance we were and I told my friends you know, it's time to move from here because the authorities will definitely come here and hold the wrong set of persons because we were just in the jungle having fun."

Marion Ali

"Having fun?"

Voice of: Hunter

"Having fun, shooting deer, gibnuts and soh, yeah hunting, that's my fun, cause you know, that's what I love; that's my hobby, hunting."

The person said they frequently hear planes flying over at night where they are in that area, but they don't land as often. The ComPol says he will be giving details on Wednesday.

Channel 5

Police On The Hunt For 2,000 Pounds Of Cocaine

Tonight, the search continues for an estimated two thousand pounds of cocaine that landed in the Belize district on a Sabreliner drug jet early on Tuesday morning.

The plane had a rough landing on a picado road behind Crooked Tree - snapping the landing gear, as it crashed to earth nose first. But, today, Commissioner of Police Chester Williams disclosed that the narcos were very prepared - so much so that they put tacks on the road to give the responding police vehicle flat tires. Sounds like a move script - but the Compol says it's real:

Chester Williams - Commissioner of Police
"The issue with these narco planes is surely a plaque to us. We have done a lot recently to deter these planes from landing within our borders and as we have said before as much as the number that we normally monitor on a nightly basis. We are able to deter many of them from landing, but one of the track came and flew over Belize and the other one manoeuvre several time and in several areas as if it was trying to find a place to land and it disappeared off the radar, so we lost communications or sight of it even on the radar and then when it did appear again, is because we are told that it had landed in the fire burn area I think, that's somewhere behind Carmelita Village in Orange Walk District

"I must say that we had a team in that area at Carmelita and that team quickly made their way to location, but while they were doing so, apparently had placed spikes on the road and the spikes caused damage to all the tires for the vehicle, so that disabled the team from reaching the location in a timely manner and by the time another vehicle came to assist and get the officers to the location, the plane was found without its cargo."

Jules Vasquez
"It has a known payload of 1,700 pounds. They usually put like 200-300 more, so we can safely estimate about 2,000 pounds were in that plane. It is a challenge to move that volume of drugs across the border. We know it's usually heading north. Do you all believe those close to 2,000 pounds of drugs are still in that general area?"

Chester Williams - Commissioner of Police
"We don't believe it is still in the general area and I think it took our team like 3 hours to get to the plane after the team experience the spikes. 3 hours would have been quite reasonable if they had adequate vehicular resources to move the cargo from point A to point B and you would know that there is a river nearby and certainly, they would not move it by road, but by the river and that river that is there runs all the way to Botes Mexico."

Reporter
"Do you believe that the narco traffickers are still in the area?"

Chester Williams - Commissioner of Police
"We believe the narco traffickers are within that Carmelita area. There are a couple of them who operates out of Carmelita, we know who they are and those are the persons we are looking for. As a matter of fact we had gone to their homes yesterday as I had directed the team to make sure we go to their homes yesterday morning to see if they were there and they were not at home, so that again says something that they could be involved and are still out in the fields dealing with the cargo."

Channel 7