Coast Guard hauls in nearly 80 pounds of marijuana in the Keys — a big ‘square grouper ’

In the Keys and elsewhere, a marijuana bale found floating in the water is called a “square grouper.”

This catch weighed in at 77 pounds, according to the Coast Guard.

On Tuesday afternoon, a boater spotted something floating in the water about six miles south of Boca Chica Key in the Lower Keys and called the Coast Guard, which sent out a crew.

The Coast Guard crew fished it out and tested it, determining it was a haul of marijuana, said Lt. Kat Brodie of Coast Guard Sector Key West.

Brodie said these finds are turned over to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

“It’s basically evidence for an investigation,” Brodie said.

The Coast Guard posted photos of about a dozen individually wrapped packages of marijuana.

“The Florida Keys are famously known around the world as one of the best fishing locations,” Coast Guard Sector Key West posted. “Even our law enforcement crew got to partake today, hauling in some elusive ‘Square Grouper.’”

This story was originally published February 26, 2021 at 5:06 PM.

Gwen Filosa

Miami Herald

Gwen Filosa covers Key West and the Lower Florida Keys for FLKeysNews.com and the Miami Herald and lives in Key West. She was part of the staff at the New Orleans Times-Picayune that in 2005 won two Pulitzer Prizes for coverage of Hurricane Katrina. She graduated from Indiana University.