BIG PINE KEY, Fla. – The Conch Republic Marine Army, a growing nonprofit in the Florida Keys, continues to recruit volunteers to keep the waterways clean.
But on a recent trip with high school students from Missouri, in the middle of pulling out nearly 350 pounds of trash from mangroves in Big Pine Key, one student made a startling discovery.
“One of the students came over to me with a plastic-wrapped block and said, ‘Hey, what’s this?’” recalled organizer Brian Vest. “It turned out it was a kilo of cocaine.”
Vest and the students said they put the suspected drugs in a bucket and called the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office.
The drugs were later taken by U.S. Border Patrol agents, who said the brick would be worth approximately $35,000 on the street.
“If you encounter a suspicious package and you don’t know what’s inside it, you have to be extremely careful,” said Assistant Chief Patrol Agent Adam Hoffner with U.S. Border Patrol.
Numerous bundles of cocaine have washed ashore in the Florida Keys over the last year, and some have been spotted floating in the water. Hoffner said the best course of action is to call local law enforcement.
Volunteers with the Conch Republic Marine Army, formed after Hurricane Irma, have pulled more than 220 tons of junk from miles of shoreline. But Vest said finding a brick of cocaine was a first.
“You never know what you’re going to find out here, from a WD-40 can to refrigerators,” Vest said. “Those kids have quite a story to tell when they go home.”