U.S. and Florida law enforcement officials continue to investigate nearly a week after 70 pounds of cocaine washed up along the beaches of ritzy Palm Beach.
The strange find baffled authorities, who are still working to determine the origin of the drugs.
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A resident was out walking at 11 a.m. last Saturday near Via La Selva in the 800 block of South Ocean Boulevard, stumbled upon a suspect package on the sand and called police, the Palm Beach Daily News reported.
One by one, more packages continued to make landfall after authorities arrived on the scene.
Later, a large tattered burlap sack was found to have also come ashore.
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Inside were about two dozen of the bricks, each vacuum-sealed in plastic wrap that featured the penguin character “Skipper” from the movie “Happy Feet,” according to photographs taken at the scene by the Palm Beach Police Department.
Credit: Palm Beach Police Department
Credit: Palm Beach Police Department
The drugs have a street value of about $850,000, said police spokesperson Michael Ogrodnick, adding that the cocaine will be destroyed in accordance with federal guidelines after it’s tested in a lab.
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“... We responded immediately to safely collect this suspected cocaine and prevent it from being distributed into our community,” he said.
Credit: Palm Beach Police Department
Credit: Palm Beach Police Department
Other voices in the community recalled a similar incident in April 2019, when a couple walking on the beach after dinner came across a brick of cocaine, its plastic wrap shimmering in the moonlight. They, too, called police.
Six years earlier, in May 2013, a West Palm Beach woman walking with friends on the beach found a package wrapped in tape. Police later confirmed it was a kilo of cocaine.
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