ORANGE WALK—Last Friday, August 8, three men – one from Orange Walk and two from the Cayo District – who were busted with just over 2.6 pounds of cocaine the day before, were remanded to the Belize Central Prison after being arraigned for drug trafficking in the Orange Walk Magistrate’s Court.

The suspected drugs were found just before 2:00 p.m. on Thursday, August 7, 2014 when Orange Walk police set up a vehicle checkpoint between Miles 68 and 69 on the Philip Goldson Highway, and searched a gold Toyota Corolla Sedan taxi with license plates OW D-00268, driven by Jorghino Chan, 20, of a Cristock Street address in Orange Walk Town.

As a result, police discovered 1,200 grams (or about 2 pounds 10 ounces) of suspected cocaine, which was hidden inside the right passenger seat of the car.

The substance was immediately confiscated and the driver, along with the two other occupants of the vehicle, Jose Luis Chavez, 38, a fisherman of the San Martin area of Belmopan, and Jose Luis Valladarez, 26, of Armenia in the Cayo District, were all detained pending charges of drug trafficking.

When they appeared in court on Friday, they were denied bail and remanded to prison until their reappearance in court on August 26, 2014.