Zacarias Copo, believed to be a big player and the missing link in the drug plane landing on the Northern Highway on the night of March 7, 2008, has handed himself over to Orange Walk Police.
He was accompanied by his lawyer, Senior Counsel Simeon Sampson, when he did so last Friday morning April 11.
Copo, 45, was being actively hunted by Orange Walk Police who suspect that he played a major role in the drug smuggling drama which ended in a shoot out between the smugglers and Belize security forces who stormed the plane and captured it.
Police have since booked him on charges which include causing a rogue aircraft to land on the Northern Highway, and the illegal handling of aviation fuel.
He has not been charged with drug trafficking, although it is generally known that the plane brought more than a ton of cocaine from Colombia.
Others who have been charged in the illegal landing of the drug plane include Ervin Canton, Luis Novelo, Victor Torres, Ricardo Rivero, Arnaldo Rivas, Cesar Cananche and Roy Lanza.
All have been charged with obstructing the flow of traffic, landing an aircraft without authority and dealing in aviation fuel without a permit. No one has been charged with cocaine trafficking so far.
The men have been allowed to secure bail in the sum of $10,000.00 each. The next court hearing will be on May 23.
The police have yet to capture the pilot and copilot of the plane, and they have found no trace of the cocaine, which the twin-engine plane reportedly brought from Colombia.
It is generally believed that the pilot and copilot both made it safely out of Belize.
Armed men wielding AK 47 assault rifles emerged out of the darkness and at gunpoint about a mile off the long stretch of the Northern Highway near mile 40 on the night of April 11, this year.
At that time of night traffic was light but a few motorists used their cell phones to call the police.
Police and BDF personnel who were deployed to the area, arrived in time to seize the plane, but the cargo of cocaine had already been shipped out.
It is believed the cocaine was trucked out that same night and smuggled into Mexico.
When Security Forces approached the area, the drug smugglers began to fire their assault rifles at them.
Re-fuelling was interrupted and in the gunfight which followed, one or more of the smugglers got hit. Police and BDF reported no casualties.
As the firefight intensified the drug smugglers withdrew and fled into the bushes, leaving the plane, the refuelling truck and the gear they had brought with them.
Five men were captured in the area and two more were apprehended in Orange Walk Town, but Zacarias Copo, whose truck was used for the refuelling operations, was nowhere to be found.
The truck contained 1,200 gallons of aviation fuel.
Police investigations focused on how the cocaine was shipped out of Belize into Mexico, and how the drug smugglers were able to accumulate 1,200 gallons of aviation fuel without arousing suspicion.
Investigators are not convinced that Copo was the mastermind behind the shipment, and are still looking for the person higher up who master-minded the operation and coordinated with the drug cartel in Colombia.
