Boaters find $625K of cocaine off Florida coast reminiscent of ‘square grouper’ marijuana smuggling days

MARCO ISLAND, Fla. - Authorities in Southwest Florida are investigating after a package with more than $500,000 worth of cocaine was found floating in the Gulf of Mexico near Everglades City on Monday.

According to the Collier County Sheriff’s Office, boaters found the 56-pound package, which was about the size of a microwave oven, floating in mangroves off Panther Key near Port of the Islands.

Investigators say they found 25 individually wrapped kilograms of cocaine worth about $625,000 inside the package.

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Deputies recovered the cocaine, which was covered in barnacles, which they say indicates that the package had been in the water for a while.

Investigators say more than half-a-million dollars worth of cocaine was found by boaters in mangroves off Southwest Florida. Image is courtesy of the Collier County Sheriff's Office.

In a social media post, CCSO noted that the cocaine package was "reminiscent of the ‘square grouper’ marijuana smuggling days in Collier County during the 1970s and 1980s but uncommon for today."

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Detectives with the CCSO’s vice and narcotics bureau are trying to figure out where the cocaine originally came from and say it most likely washed in with the tides from the East Coast due to recent storms.

The sheriff’s office added that large packages of drugs ranging from marijuana to hashish to cocaine have been discovered floating in the waters off Miami and the Florida Keys.

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