KEY LARGO, Fla. — A group of snorkelers found a brick of cocaine Monday morning while swimming on the Atlantic Ocean side of Key Largo, according to the Monroe County Sheriff's Office.
The snorkelers found the package around 11 a.m. before turning it over to local law enforcement.
Deputies say they turned over the brick to the U.S. Border Patrol. The weight of the brick was not made immediately available.
The Miami Herald says that South Florida, particularly the Keys, is part of the smuggling rouge for drugs coming through South America and the Caribbean.
Back in early April, three packages containing more than $100,000 worth of cocaine washed ashore on several Florida beaches.
The first discovery came about when a beachgoer on Miramar Beach told deputies they found what appeared to be "some type of narcotics." The package was in a clear Ziploc bag wrapped in clear plastic, the sheriff's office said.
On the same day, deputies were called to Gulfview Heights Beach Access about another "suspicious" package.
"The caller said the package appeared to be a brick of cocaine washed up on the shoreline and notified the lifeguard near Ed Walline beach access," the sheriff's office said.
The following morning, deputies responded to Grayton Beach State Park for a similar incident where the sheriff's office says they found another brick of cocaine wrapped with a different logo on top.
Each of the packages was collected and submitted to be destroyed, the sheriff's office reports.
10 Tampa Bay's Jordan Highsmith contributed to this story.
