HANDOUT-US Border Patrol-AFP
Hurricane Debby landed in Florida Monday bringing high winds, pouring rain and 25 tightly wrapped packages of cocaine worth more than $1 million.
Debby, which hit the state's northern Big Bend region as a Category One hurricane but has since been downgraded to a tropical storm, washed the trove of drugs ashore along Florida's southernmost tip.
"Hurricane Debby blew 25 packages of cocaine (70 lbs.) onto a beach in the Florida Keys," US Border Patrol acting chief patrol Agent Samuel Briggs II wrote on X.
The load of drugs, which Briggs reported was valued at more than $1 million, was discovered by a good Samaritan who contacted the authorities.
In July of 2023, the mayor of Tampa, Florida similarly discovered 31.7 kg of cocaine that had been washed ashore in the Florida Keys, while enjoying a vacation day.
Meanwhile, Tropical Storm Debby killed at least four people and is threatening southeastern US states with heavy rainfall and catastrophic flooding.
A 13-year-old boy died when a tree was blown onto a mobile home in Levy County, the sheriff's office there said, after Debby made landfall on Florida's Gulf Coast earlier Monday as a Category One hurricane.
Authorities said a truck driver was killed after his 18-wheeler plunged into a canal in Hillsborough County, while a 38-year-old woman and 12-year-old boy died in a car crash in Dixie County.
The Keys, a string of islands stretching off the state's southern tip, are located in close proximity to a number of Caribbean countries that serve as a transit hub for cocaine being trafficked from South America to Europe and North America, including into Florida.
© Agence France-Presse
