Someone spotted a package at a Keys state park. It was filled with drugs, police said

People keep spotting illegal drugs washed ashore in the Florida Keys or floating in the waters surrounding the island chain.

This time, it’s 2.3 pounds of cocaine, or a little more than a kilogram, found Tuesday inside Bahia Honda State Park between mile markers 36 and 37, said U.S. Border Patrol spokesman Adam Hoffner.

Hoffner said he didn’t have an estimated dollar amount for the cocaine because the case is still being processed.

The package of white powder was discovered by a “good Samaritan” inside the park, Hoffner said.

A park ranger presented the package to Monroe Deputy Ty Torres, who contacted the Border Patrol, said sheriff’s office spokesman Adam Linhardt.

Other reports of people stumbling upon illegal drugs have popped up recently, and this isn’t the first time this year police received a call about a find at a state park in the Keys.

Earlier this month, a Key Largo man who was picking up trash on a beach at John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park found a brick of cocaine that weighed in at 1.3 kilograms, the U.S. Border Patrol said.

In late May, more than $1.4 million worth of cocaine washed up at Bahia Honda State Park. A park worker found 23 bricks of cocaine, which weighed 63 pounds, officials said.

At the start of May, almost $2 million worth of illegal drugs were found in the waters off the Keys.

Recreational boaters found 73 pounds of cocaine and 62 pounds of marijuana in two separate instances that spanned two days.

This story was originally published June 23, 2021 at 1:27 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.