On Wednesday afternoon a snorkeler doing his snorkeling thing in the Florida Keys came across a black bag wrapped in tape. Baled inside that bag was 25 bricks of cocaine, which ended up weighing 68 pounds.
The drugs were reported to the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office, who then turned them over to the U.S. Border Patrol, which said the find had a worth of over $1.5 million.
The snorkeler wasn’t identified (who needs that, you know?) beyond being called a “Good Samaritan” on the Twitter account of Border Patrol Miami Sector’s Chief Patrol Agent, Thomas G. Martin.
It isn’t clear where the drugs originated from, and investigators didn’t reveal that information to the public. Still, bundles of drugs often wash up in the area.
Newsweek reports that in recent months, people out for routine activities on the water have made similar discoveries. In December, a guy who was out fishing found nearly 75 pounds of coke floating near him. Last summer, two separate hauls—one which was about 150 pounds of marijuana, another made up of nearly 80 pounds of cocaine—washed up on shore.
Officials think that the COVID pandemic may be leaving smugglers with fewer options to transport drugs from South America to the U.S. As a special agent for the DEA put it to The Miami Herald: “The flow has been hampered by the pandemic. All the drug traffickers are having a hard time recruiting couriers.”
