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What was that floating in the ocean? Florida Keys boater reports discovery to police

Bricks of cocaine are displayed on a table. The drugs were found by a boater in the Florida Keys Tuesday, May 2, 2023, and turned over to U.S. Border Patrol agents.
Bricks of cocaine are displayed on a table. The drugs were found by a boater in the Florida Keys Tuesday, May 2, 2023, and turned over to U.S. Border Patrol agents. U.S. Border Patrol

A boater found 16 bricks of cocaine floating in the ocean off the Florida Keys, according to the U.S. Border Patrol.

The bricks weighed about 41 pounds and have a street value of roughly $640,000, Walter Slosar, chief patrol agent for the Border Patrol’s Miami operations, said in a statement on Twitter.

The contraband was found Tuesday off the Upper Keys Village of Islamorada, Slosar said, and the boater reported the find to local authorities before Border Patrol agents took possession of the load.

This story was originally published May 3, 2023 at 11:23 AM with the headline "What was that floating in the ocean? Florida Keys boater reports discovery to police."

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David Goodhue
Miami Herald
305-923-9728
David Goodhue covers the Florida Keys and South Florida for FLKeysNews.com and the Miami Herald. Before joining the Herald, he covered Congress, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Energy in Washington, D.C. He is a graduate of the University of Delaware.