Tropical Storm Debby’s strong winds and heavy rain have downed trees, submerged streets and drenched neighborhoods across Florida this week. The storm also heaved an unexpected type of debris onto one beach: blocks of cocaine worth about $1 million.
Debby, which made landfall as a Category 1 hurricane with sustained winds of at least 74 mph, blew 25 packages of cocaine onto a beach on the Florida Keys, according to Samuel Briggs II, the acting chief patrol agent for the U.S. Border Patrol in Miami. The drugs were discovered by a “good Samaritan,” who alerted authorities, Briggs said in a social media post. The U.S. Border Patrol seized the drugs, he said.
The cocaine blocks, which weighed about 70 pounds total, appeared to be wrapped in plastic and marked with a red and black symbol, according to photos shared by Briggs. Their street value, he added, was over $1 million. It was unclear whether they had washed up on shore in the water or been blown there by the wind.
The narcotics appeared in Islamorada, a village in Monroe County, according to Jeffrey Quiñones, a spokesperson for U.S. Customs and Border Protection. The drugs were taken into the agency’s custody, Quiñones said in an email on Tuesday. He declined to provide further details.
Drug packages have appeared Florida’s shores before. In 2019, a police department in Cocoa Beach warned the public to be cautious after a duffel bag stuffed with 15 kilograms (about 33 pounds) of powdered cocaine washed up during Hurricane Dorian, according to Florida Today. Soon after, another kilogram of cocaine was found on a beach in Melbourne. And in 1996, dozens of cocaine packages that had been dropped or dumped by smugglers also swept ashore on two beaches.
Bad weather may have also driven cocaine to wash up in Australia, after residents in New South Wales began reporting finding bricks and barrels of the drug along a 60 mile stretch of coastline. Australian police eventually accused a Queensland man of trying to smuggle 1,980 pounds of cocaine into the country. Adverse weather conditions may have partly hindered smugglers from retrieving the drugs, authorities said.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
