BDF and police destroy record 61,000 marijuana plants in two days
Twenty-four Belize Defence Force soldiers and police officers destroyed more than 61,000 marijuana plants, 220 pounds of compressed marijuana and 10 pounds of seeds in a two-day operation in southwestern Orange Walk District and Cayo District. The BDF put the combined street value at 12.5 million Belize dollars and credited air support from US Joint Task Force Bravo.
🇧🇿 Southwestern Orange Walk District and Cayo District, Belize
Twenty-four Belize Defence Force soldiers and police officers destroyed a record
quantity of marijuana plants in a two-day operation.[1]A BDF release said the
teams destroyed more than 61,000 plants, 220 pounds of compressed marijuana and
10 pounds of marijuana seeds.[1]
The operation was concentrated in the southwestern Orange Walk District and the
Cayo District.[1]According to the BDF, the marijuana in its various forms had
a combined street value of 12.5 million Belize dollars.[1]The BDF said those
61,000 plants destroyed in 48 hours were twice the 30,000 destroyed in all of
the previous year and 50 per cent more than the 41,000 destroyed in 2011.[1]
The operation had air support from the US Southern Command, with Joint Task
Force Bravo assisting and US soldiers seen in Chinook helicopters in footage the
BDF provided.[1]The BDF attributed the result to improved information sharing
and enhanced intelligence gathering.[1]
Case data
Every number and detail the sources state, with the sources that state it.
The article gives no exact date for the operation, describing it only as taking place "this week"; 12 April 2013, the publication date, stands in for the incident date.
No date range is given, so the two-day operation's start and end days are unknown.
The BDF release does not give the number of fields, the area cleared in hectares, or how the plant and compressed-marijuana totals split between Orange Walk and Cayo.
No arrests, charges or court outcomes were reported, and the release does not say whether anyone was found at the destroyed plots.
The 220 pounds of compressed marijuana were destroyed with the plants, so they are counted as cannabis weight rather than a separate seizure.
The 12.5 million Belize dollar figure is the BDF's combined street value for all the destroyed marijuana, not a market price confirmed independently.
The plants described as destroyed were growing crops; no laboratory confirmation of the material is reported.
A police drone recon in a remote part of Toledo District found cannabis drying under a zinc-roofed structure in a corn field and a second cultivation site nearby. Officers uprooted and burned 86 plants, three to seven feet tall.
Belize Police Department officers destroyed a marijuana plantation in the Rhaburn Ridge area, Commissioner of Police Chester Williams said in September 2024. Neither the size of the plantation nor any arrests were reported, and the announcement came alongside cocaine operations in northern Belize.
Belize police found a plantation of 875 marijuana plants in Orange Walk District on the morning of 16 September 2024 and uprooted and burned the crop. No one was present at the site and no arrests were reported.
Belizean forces with US Joint Task Force-Bravo destroyed more than 50,000 marijuana plants across Belize during Operation CARACOL on 26-30 October 2015. US Army helicopters provided airlift, ladder training and medical-evacuation cover while Belizean teams identified and eliminated the fields.
