Yet another load of drugs found floating off the Keys, feds say. Fifth this month
For the fifth time this month, a large shipment of drugs was found floating in the ocean off the Florida Keys over the weekend, according to the U.S. Border Patrol.
A recreational boater found what turned out to be 70 pounds of cocaine, worth about $1.1 million, Walter Slosar, chief patrol agent with the Border Patrol’s Miami sector, said in a statement on Twitter Monday. The boater called authorities, and the bricks of coke, which each had a picture of a butterfly on the wrappings, were taken by federal agents.
Adam Hoffner, division chief for U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s Miami operations told the Miami Herald that the drugs were found Sunday off the Middle Keys city of Marathon.
It seems that a lot of smugglers are coming up short in their deliveries judging by the amount of drugs that have been turning up in the waters surrounding the island chain this month.
Last Saturday, another boater found a bale of marijuana off Islamorada in the Upper Keys that weighed around 3 pounds.
On July 2, boaters found a package containing 87 pounds of hashish offshore of Marathon.
That same day in basically the same area, another boater found a package containing 62 pounds of cocaine, according to the Border Patrol.
And the day before that, a boater found a bale of marijuana weighing about 8 pounds floating about 13 miles northwest of Big Pine Key in the Lower Keys, the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement.
