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BDF Commander’s driver arrested for drug plane landing

HeadlineBDF Commander’s driver arrested for drug plane landing

LADYVILLE, Fri. Jan. 29, 2021– One of the lawmen arrested and charged in connection to the drug plane bust which took place early Friday morning was the driver of Brigadier General Steven Ortega. During an interview with the media on Friday, the BDF’s commander confirmed reports of the arrest and shared that he was distraught by the news. His driver, identified as Lance Corporal Steve Rowland was the only BDF soldier arrested for being a part of the operation, in addition to two other lawmen, both police officers, and six civilians.

“Well, he was my driver. Was, because I can’t have a driver being detained by the police for such actions,” Brigadier General Ortega commented. He said that the actions of his driver are very distressing for him, and also for the entire force, since the BDF troops, according to Ortega, are trained to be on the “other side of the law.”

He stressed that despite the black eye suffered by the BDF as a result of someone in their ranks being arrested for involvement in the landing, the operation was a successful one. “Normally the police would be the one who follows it up, because they are the ones who track it throughout, but through our joint intelligence center are the ones who continuously track these aircrafts coming in, and then we deploy deterrent patrol and should it make a landing like this one this early this morning. We try our best to intercept, and we intercepted this one with some personnel. It was a very successful day for us as well in that aspect,” he said.

In addressing the suspicions that lawmen play a key role in facilitating these drug plane landings, Brig. Gen. Ortega had this to say:

“These operations are very secret, so it is not open to everyone. The only persons who know about it are the persons going out on those operations. I mean, do you think a member of the force or a member of the police force would get caught if they knew about the operations? So evidently there is a level of secrecy involved; otherwise, they would all get away. But that’s not the case in terms of the planes getting away; it’s just that we can’t cover all the places at the same time,” he said.

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