Hurricane Debby caused significant destruction in the Southeast last week, and in addition to the damage, over 100 pounds of narcotics were discovered along Florida’s shores. On August 4, 25 packages of cocaine, totaling about 70 pounds and valued at more than $1 million, were found on a beach in Islamorada, a village in the Florida Keys. The US Customs and Border Patrol in Miami reported that a good Samaritan alerted authorities after coming across the packages. Samuel Briggs, the acting chief patrol agent of the US Border Patrol’s Miami sector, shared a photo showing the large quantity of seized drugs. A week later, on Monday, the Collier County Sheriff’s Office reported that another batch of cocaine, valued at over half a million dollars, was found floating near Everglades City in the Gulf of Mexico.
The boaters found a package about the size of a microwave oven, which was later identified as containing 56 pounds of cocaine. The package contained 25 individually wrapped kilograms of cocaine, according to the Collier County Sheriff’s Office. Authorities estimated that the drugs were worth $625,000 on the street. “We appreciate the help of Good Samaritans in our community who saw something unusual and contacted law enforcement,” Rambosk said in the post. The barnacles covering the package suggested it had been in the water for some time, authorities 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 Facebook post said.
The term “square grouper” is slang used to describe bales of marijuana wrapped in plastic because they looked like square fish, Brian Townsend, a retired supervisory special agent with the Drug Enforcement Administration, told CNN.
“During the 1970s and 1980s, drug smugglers commonly wrapped marijuana this way to transport it from the Caribbean and South America into Florida and other coastal areas,” Townsend said.
Investigators stated that the cocaine was likely carried in by the tides from the east coast during recent storms. Large packages of drugs, including marijuana, hashish, and cocaine, have been found floating in the waters off Miami and the Florida Keys.
Drug smugglers often use boats, submarines, and other vessels to bring drugs into the US by sea. They may dump the drugs in the water to avoid seizure if their vessels run into problems such as mechanical failures, severe weather, or law enforcement intervention. According to Townsend, he has frequently seen drugs washing up along the South Texas shoreline on the Gulf Coast during one of his previous assignments with the DEA.
“Some smugglers intentionally drop bales of drugs wrapped in plastic or watertight containers into the sea at predetermined locations for later retrieval by other smugglers,” Townsend said.
Once in the water, ocean currents and tides, especially during storms like Debby, can carry the drugs to shore far from their original drop points, he said.
