Mysterious barnacle-covered package seen off Florida island held a fortune, cops say

Something resembling a “microwave oven” seen floating off southwest Florida proved to be a small fortune in market-ready cocaine, authorities say.

It was found by “good Samaritans” in remote coastal waters Monday, Aug. 12, and they alerted the Collier County Sheriff’s Office, according to a news release.

“Boaters found what turned out to be 56 pounds of cocaine floating in mangroves off Panther Key near Port of the Islands,” the sheriff’s office said.

“The package, about the size of a microwave oven, contained 25 individually wrapped kilograms of cocaine. The cocaine has an estimated street value of $625,000.”

Panther Key is along the Gulf of Mexico, about an 85-mile drive west from Miami.

Deputies went to recover the bundle, which was within a protected marine area known as the Ten Thousand Islands National Wildlife Refuge.

The cache of coke was caked in barnacles, which indicates it “had been in the water for a while,” the sheriff’s office said.

“The find was reminiscent of the ‘square grouper’ marijuana smuggling days in Collier County during the 1970s and 1980s but uncommon for today,” the sheriff’s office said.

“The cocaine most likely washed in with the tides from the east coast due to recent storms. Large packages of drugs ranging from marijuana to hashish to cocaine have been discovered floating in the waters off Miami and the Florida Keys.”

Detectives are working to find out who lost the package, officials said.