Beachgoer looking for turtle nests on Florida beach finds bricks of cocaine worth $4M
A man scouring a north Florida beach for sea turtle nests stumbled instead upon more than 70 pounds of cocaine bricks with a street value of $4 million, according to police.
The bizarre discovery was made on Friday morning on Amelia Island beach in Nassau County, News4Jax reported.
The bricks of cocaine, weighing in at 32 kilograms, were wrapped in plastic with a picture of a bald eagle on top, photos show.
The drugs have an estimated value of $1 million in brick form but a street value of more than $4 million, law enforcement officials said,
Beachgoers were shocked when they learned about the find.
“We came out looking for shark teeth, but their value is not quite the street value of the other stuff that’s washing up. But we’re still looking for shark teeth,” Paula Johns, a tourist from South Carolina, told the outlet.
While it’s common for large amounts of packaged drugs to wash ashore in southern Florida where smuggling is rampant, it’s strange for such a large amount of cocaine to be found so far north.
“It’s very rare here in Nassau County,” Nassau County Sheriff Bill Leeper said. “Many years ago, there were bales of marijuana that washed up on the beach, but to my knowledge, something like this washing up is certainly a rare event.”
Leeper believes the drug smugglers likely tossed the load overboard.
“More than likely, it was on a boat that law enforcement or Coast Guard was getting close to and they just threw it overboard to get rid of it so they didn’t have possession of it. The sea current just washes it up along the coastline,” he said.
