From: GlennTillett.com
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In 2011 I went to Melchor de Mencos to see for myself the phenomenon of cigarette trafficking across the Belize-Guatemalan border which my reports had said was creating an entirely new class of noveau riche there.
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Melchor was a bustling place, with ongoing construction and cemented streets. Many businesses advertised Belize telephone numbers, and an astounding variety of cheap beer and cigarettes seem to be the preferred stock in trade. I did not have time to visit the market opting instead for a surreptitious sight-seeing tour of some homes newly built or being constructed away from the town center, almost invariably on hills, and all guarded in some fashion by men with guns.
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A few days later someone sent me a link to a story of a “gang” that had been arrested in New York for smuggling cigarettes into the US that had originated in the Corozal Free Zone, some US$5 million worth the indictments said, a couple container loads.
