Cocaine worth £3.1m found by dog walker in Cornish cave
Cocaine thought to be worth up to £3.1 million has washed up on a beach in Cornwall.
A black bag, which appeared to be wrapped in a bin bag, was found on Trevaunance Cove in St Agnes on the north Cornish coast on Saturday.
An image said to have been taken outside Schooners bar overlooking the cove shows a police officer beside the bag.
Otis Robertson, 19, who works at Schooners bar, told The Telegraph that the bag had been found in a cave nearby.
He said: “In the morning, it was found in a cave by a dog walker. They instantly called the police. It was a big black carrier bag. The lifeguards said it was full of bricks [of cocaine].
“The police came down and searched to see if there was any more. They actually said it was around 40kg and valued at £3 million.”
Mr Robertson claimed that recent strong winds had brought the bag ashore.
An anonymous resident told the Daily Mail: “It’s been the talk of the village this weekend. It’s a very gossipy place anyway but when something unusual like this happens, even more so.
“I’m told the drugs were found washed up on Saturday morning and the police were called. The beach is popular with dog walkers and even out of the main holiday season there are always lots of people here.”
The National Crime Agency (NCA) has said that the domestic cocaine market is dominated by criminal gangs who make around £4 billion a year.
In February, the NCA and Border Force seized 5.7 tons of cocaine – one of its biggest-ever seizures of class-A drugs in the UK. The contraband was found hidden among bananas in a container at Southampton Port which had been transported from South America and was bound for Hamburg, Germany.
Based on UK street-level prices, this cocaine would have had an estimated value of over £450 million.
Last month, a Royal Navy patrol ship seized £40 million of cocaine from a speedboat in the Caribbean.
Royal Marines and US Coast Guard personnel on HMS Trent intercepted the vessel carrying 506kg of Class A narcotics south of the Dominican Republic.
The bust was the sixth made by the Royal Navy vessel this year, bringing the total amount of drugs seized to £551.5 million.
Devon and Cornwall Police was contacted for comment.
