Hurricane Debby washed ashore $1 million worth of cocaine onto Florida beaches

By Jonathan Franklin

Published August 20, 2024 at 4:00 AM CDT

The U.S. Customs and Border Patrol in Miami said 25 packages of cocaine totaling up to 70 pounds were discovered on a beach in the Florida Keys. In a post on Facebook, officials say the packages have a street value of up to $1 million.

In the aftermath of Hurricane Debby earlier this month, more than 100 pounds of cocaine worth $1 million washed up on a beach in the Florida Keys.

The U.S. Customs and Border Patrol in Miami reported that the storm blew ashore 25 packages of cocaine totaling up to 70 pounds onto a beach in the Florida Keys. According to the law enforcement agency, a good Samaritan alerted authorities after coming across the packages.

In a post on X, Samuel Briggs, the acting chief patrol agent of the U.S. Border Patrol’s Miami division, wrote that authorities confiscated the packages of drugs — which have an estimated value of more than $1 million.

Hurricane Debby blew 25 packages of cocaine (70 lbs.) onto a beach in the Florida Keys. Good Samaritan discovered the drugs & contacted authorities. U.S. Border Patrol seized the drugs, which have a street value of over $1 million dollars.#Hurricane #Debby #Florida #floridakeys pic.twitter.com/nsjKu6qm8V
— Andrew Scharnweber (@USBPChiefMIP) August 5, 2024

And the discoveries along Florida's beaches didn't end there.

One week later, near Everglades City in Collier County, Fla., the Collier County Sheriff's Office discovered a package containing more than half a million dollars worth of cocaine. In a Facebook post last week, Collier County Sheriff Kevin Rambosk said that the boaters discovered a 56-pound package of cocaine floating in the mangroves off Panther Key Island.

The package contained 25 individually wrapped kilograms of cocaine and had an estimated street value of $625,000, according to the Facebook post.

"Large packages of drugs ranging from marijuana to hashish to cocaine have been discovered floating in the waters off Miami and the Florida Keys," authorities said.

A team of detectives from Collier County Sheriff's Office and its vice and narcotics bureau is working to find out where precisely the drugs originated, as authorities said the drugs most likely washed in with the tides from the East Coast.

Debby made landfall as a hurricane on Aug. 5. The deadly storm spent nearly a week bringing flooding and tornadoes along the East Coast of the U.S. before moving into Canada.

Several states, including Florida, Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina, experienced power outages and flooding, as the National Hurricane Center called the storm a “life-threatening situation.”