More and more cocaine keeps turning up on Florida’s shores in the wake of Hurricane Debby, with beachcombers and boaters coming across illicit packages in the weeks following the powerful and deadly storm.
More than 100 pounds of narcotics have been discovered in recent weeks along the coastline of the Sunshine State, including 70 pounds of cocaine packages in the village of Islamorada in the Florida Keys.
The 25 packages that washed up in Islamorada were valued at more than US$1 million and found by a Good Samaritan early this month.
And then, just a week later, another batch of cocaine was discovered by boaters floating in the mangroves near Everglades City, in the Gulf of Mexico.
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“We appreciate the help of Good Samaritans in our community who saw something unusual and contacted law enforcement,” said Collier County Sheriff Kevin Rambosk in a Facebook post, estimating that the floating drugs had a street value of more than half-a-million dollars.
The packages were covered in barnacles, suggesting the drugs had been in the water for some time, authorities said.
“The find was reminiscent of the ‘square grouper’ marijuana smuggling days in Collier County during the 1970s and 1980s but uncommon for today,” the Facebook post said.
Brian Townsend, a former agent with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency, told CNN that “square grouper” is slang that describes bales of marijuana that are wrapped in plastic in the shape of cubes and look like a square fish.
“During the 1970s and 1980s, drug smugglers commonly wrapped marijuana this way to transport it from the Caribbean and South America into Florida and other coastal areas,” Townsend said.
Drug smugglers will often drop drugs in specific predetermined spots that are to be picked up by other dealers and smugglers. Or, if there is a threat of discovery or seizure by law enforcement, smugglers may ditch the drugs in the water, making abandoned drugs discoveries not uncommon along the Florida coast, especially when the drugs are moved away from drop points by storms, tides and currents.
Officers investigating both cases said that the drugs were likely washed ashore due to recent storms along the east coast, including Hurricane Debby, a Category 1 hurricane that made landfall with Florida in early August.
“Large packages of drugs ranging from marijuana to hashish to cocaine have been discovered floating in the waters off Miami and the Florida Keys,” Collier County posted on Facebook, adding that officials are working to identify the source of the drugs.
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