Hurricane Debby brought more than powerful winds and storm surge to Florida — packages of cocaine worth more than $1 million also made landfall, officials said, marking the latest in a string of recent discoveries of drugs along Florida shores.
Debby, which slammed into the state as a Category 1 hurricane but has since been downgraded to a tropical storm, washed the drugs ashore in the Florida Keys, U.S. Border Patrol acting chief patrol Agent Samuel Briggs II wrote on social media.
“Hurricane Debby blew 25 packages of cocaine (70 lbs.) onto a beach in the Florida Keys,” Briggs wrote, posting two images of the packages.
Briggs said the trove of drugs, which has a street value of more than $1 million, was found by a good Samaritan who contacted the authorities.
Cocaine has been found on numerous occasions on and near the shores of Florida, which is not far from Caribbean transit hubs for drugs being trafficked from South America to the U.S. and Europe.
In June, recreational boasters off the coast of the Florida Keys found 65 pounds of cocaine floating in the ocean, Briggs said.
Earlier that month, divers found 25 kilograms of cocaine about 100 feet underwater off Key West. The very next day, the same amount of suspected cocaine was found washed up on Dauphin Island, Alabama.
In May, a beachgoer found about $1 million worth of cocaine washed up along the Florida Keys, CBS News Miami reported.
In 2023, packages of cocaine worth more than $100,000 washed up on several Florida beaches. Also last year, Tampa Mayor Jane Castor, while on a fishing trip with her family, reeled in 70 pounds of cocaine.
In 2019, bricks of cocaine were discovered on two beaches after Hurricane Dorian lashed the Florida coast.
Stephen Smith is a managing editor for CBSNews.com based in New York. A Washington, D.C. native, Steve was previously an editorial producer for the Washington Post, and has also worked in Los Angeles, Boston and Tokyo.
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