Police in Marshall Islands, a small Pacific nation, seized 649 pounds of cocaine found on a ship that, according to authorities, remained adrift “for a year or two” and is believed to come from America. of the South Central.
The shipment, valued at $ 80 million (65 million euros), is the largest confiscation in the archipelago, the Police Department said on social media.
The illicit merchandise, surrounded in packages of a kilo, was found in the Ailuk atoll, to the north of the insular country, constituted by twenty-nine atolls and five islands.
Attorney General Richard Hickson pointed out that the cocaine was found by a community member in a compartment inside the boat, about five meters long, abandoned in Ailuk, about 390 kilometers from the capital and home about 400 people.
This is not the first time that authorities have encountered bales of drugs swept away by sea currents from the coasts of America, the Mariana Variety newspaper points out.
According to security forces, traffickers may throw the drug into the sea at the risk of being discovered or it may be a cargo lost as a result of a storm or during unloading operations.