What’s washing up on Keys beaches? Feds kept busy with hauls of cocaine and marijuana
It’s become an all-too familiar sight in the Florida Keys: packages of drugs washing up along the coastline.
But this time, federal agents were sent out six times over two days to check out reports of narcotics coming to shore, according to the U.S. Border Patrol.
The total haul added up to 29 pounds of marijuana and 1.3 pounds of cocaine — numbers that aren’t going to impress the locals when it comes to the floating wayward stashes. But the feds were kept busy as calls came in.
“Good Samaritans found the drugs and notified authorities,” said Walter N. Slosar, the chief patrol agent of the Border Patrol’s Miami sector headquarters, in a tweet on Tuesday.
Most of the drugs turned up in the Middle Keys, said Alan Regalado, a spokesman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security in Miami.
Beachside discoveries are made regularly these days.
Last month, Border Patrol reported collecting in one week 19 pounds of cocaine and 49 pounds of marijuana from the shores of the Keys in three separate incidents. The agency estimated the street value of the drugs at $193,000.
In late April and early May last year, almost $2 million worth of illegal drugs were found by boaters in the Keys.
The Border Patrol said 73 pounds of cocaine and 62 pounds of marijuana were found between two days. The cocaine, wrapped up in 25 packages stuffed in a large sack and found off Key Largo, was valued at $1.7 million while the marijuana scooped up in Marathon was worth $100,000 on the street.
This story was originally published June 8, 2022 at 6:10 PM.
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