Weird News

800 Pounds of Cocaine Wash up on English Coast

By  | 

Apparently, someone lost their luggage, and they’re probably pretty upset about it. Bags that washed up on two beaches in Norfolk on England’s east coast turned out to contain almost 800 pounds of cocaine, worth more than $60 million. A member of the public found the drugs, packed in colorful North Face bags.

The National Crime Agency deals with organized crime in the UK, and responded to the find. “This is obviously a substantial seizure of class A drugs and its loss will represent a major blow to the organized criminals involved,” said Matthew Rivers from the NCA border investigation team. He added that the place where the bags showed up was most likely not the intended destination–they were found outside two small towns with a couple of thousand people each, Hopton-on-Sea and Caister-on-Sea. The NCA is working with the coastguard to try to determine where the drugs were supposed to go.

This is not the first time drugs on the loose ended up on a beach in the British Isles. In October, a torpedo-like device with over $5 million of cocaine inside was found stranded on a beach in Western Ireland and was believed to have been there for weeks or months before anyone noticed. There was another similar incident in 2008. And the biggest cocaine seizure in the UK was water related as well–three tons in 2015, worth over $620 million, found in a ship off the coast of Scotland. That seizure led to the arrest of two Turkish nationals.

Drug trafficking to the United Kingdom is estimated to cost law enforcement £10.7 billion a year, which is about $13.3 billion. The amount of cocaine imported every year is believed to be somewhere between 25-30 tons. And though it’s not very likely that someone will come forward to claim this most recent case of lost drugs, the NCA took the opportunity to have some fun with it.

Soon there were a bunch of jokes about the drug find, with some saying they should make a version of the show “Narcos,” and various members of the public suggesting that they could take care of the bags.

But the NCA doesn’t take criminal activity lightly.

Norfolk police urged members of the public to get in touch if they find anything suspicious…or this weird!

Emma Von Zeipel
Emma Von Zeipel
Emma Von Zeipel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. She is originally from one of the islands of Stockholm, Sweden. After working for Democratic Voice of Burma in Thailand, she ended up in New York City. She has a BA in journalism from Stockholm University and is passionate about human rights, good books, horses, and European chocolate. Contact Emma at EVonZeipel@LawStreetMedia.com.

Share:
Related Items

Comments

comments

Send this to friend